


Part Human

by lastincurableromantic



Series: The Slow Path [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Drama, F/M, Humor, Romance, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 125,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastincurableromantic/pseuds/lastincurableromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, I guess this is our Aberdeen," she said, squeezing his hand. The part human Doctor struggles to make Rose see him how he sees himself, all while coming to terms with a new body, a new universe, no Tardis, and, oh yes, having to save the planet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The light wind coming in from the bay brought a nip to the air and gently blew through his hair, fluffing it a bit more, if that were possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donna tighten her coat against the cold. He felt the tails of his own blue suit jacket flap gently in the breeze.

“Alright,” said Rose, “both of you, answer me this… When I last stood on this beach on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?”

She was looking at his other self.

“Go on, say it,” she insisted.

His other self said, “Rose Tyler.”

When it was clear he wouldn’t continue, she prompted him again. 

“Yeah, and how was that sentence gonna end?”

“Does it need saying?” his other self said simply.

His heart went out to her as he saw a look of pain briefly cross her face. 

“And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?”

He bent down toward her and whispered into her ear. At hearing his reply, she stared at him for a moment, and then grabbed him by the lapels, pulling him toward her and kissing him. He responded with all the longing that had built up within him since he had first met her in the basement of Henrik’s. But for one split second, in his mind he was standing outside himself, next to Donna, feeling a stab of pain and jealousy as he watched Rose kiss someone else. 

At the sound of a door closing, Rose broke away from him and took several steps toward the TARDIS. His heart, his newly singular heart, squeezed in pain when he saw a look of shock cross her face. It didn’t take telepathy to know what was going through her mind. The Doctor, the _real_ Doctor had left her. While she had been kissing his clone. Just a _copy_ of him. And he didn’t know how to convince her otherwise.

As the TARDIS began to wheeze and groan and fade from sight, he stepped up to her and took her hand. As always, he was struck by how her hand fit perfectly in his. As they looked at each other, they listened as the most beautiful sound in the universe faded to silence.

As the part human Doctor watched Rose, she looked away. He could tell she was struggling not to cry.

“Are you alright?” he asked her quietly.

“Me?” she sniffed, attempting to smile. “I’m always alright.” 

The Doctor recoiled slightly at his own words being used by Rose.

Rose wiped her face with the back of her free hand and looked around. “I’ve always hated this beach. I’m never coming back here again, I can tell you that. You couldn’t pay me to even step foot in bloody Norway again.”

She looked behind her. The Doctor followed her gaze and saw Jackie, who was trying to get a signal on her mobile phone to call Pete.

“Well, I guess this is _our_ Aberdeen,” she said to him, squeezing his hand. The Doctor recognized the reference to where Sarah Jane Smith had unceremoniously been dropped off after her travels with him. “Come on, let’s go home.”


	2. Chapter One

##### Chapter 1

No one noticed, not even the astrophysicists, when the first of the stars went out.

To be fair, it was a class T brown dwarf on the far side of the galaxy, primarily radiating along the infrared portion of the spectrum. Only professional astronomers and astrophysicists had known about it; it wasn’t listed on any star chart. When it was no longer there, no one noticed. After all, they were at war with the Cybermen and that _was_ a bit of a distraction.

And budgets had been cut.

The next three stars that disappeared weren’t noticed either. The observatory assigned to monitor that section of space had just hired a new intern to do the computer backups and filing, and he was a bit rubbish. Wasn’t even good at making tea.

When the amateur astronomers and professional astrophysicists had truly begun to notice the missing stars, when Regulus in the constellation Leo disappeared without warning, they did what all modern scientists do. They wrote professional papers and went on morning talk shows. To be fair, it just seemed like a quirk of nature, a scientific oddity which should be examined and studied, not be concerned about. 

It was the astrologers who sounded the alarm, making vague warnings that Mars was rising, Virgo was low on the horizon, and Venus was in conjunction with Gemini. 

The universe, Pete Tyler’s universe, grew dark, much darker than it had been. And eventually everyone, even the politicians, realized something was dreadfully wrong. A plan was conceived, equipment was built, a woman was sent searching for a savior. And the stars began to shine again.

But not all of them.

It would never again be as bright as it had been only months before. Countless stars had been snuffed out, never to shine again. 

As the stars had died, their planets had died, along with all the inhabitants of those planets. Whole cultures, whole species, whole solar systems had been wiped out with their planets within seconds, never to be seen again. 

But not all whose planets had been destroyed died. Many lived in off world colonies. And many had been able to evacuate. And in an effort to survive, those who were left became colder, harder, and more dangerous.

On Earth, Pete’s Earth, many humans had become colder, harder and more dangerous as well. The recent difficulties, as President Harriet Jones of Great Britain called them, of first the Cybermen and then the darkness, had left most people exhausted and ready for normality, for peace at almost any cost…

 

After being stranded on Darlig Ulv Stranden in Norway with her daughter, Rose, and the new Doctor, the part human meta-crisis regeneration of the Time Lord Rose had formerly traveled with, Jackie Tyler had called her husband, Pete, for transport back to London. Pete Tyler, multi-millionaire founder of the Vitex Corporation as well as the current Director of the Torchwood Institute, had immediately sent out a helicopter to pick them up and bring them to Bergen, where they caught a flight to London. Despite the relatively short distance by air, the flight by zeppelin seemed interminably long to the Doctor. After a few pitiful attempts at small talk, he and Rose had fallen into an uncomfortable silence. Eventually he glanced over at her and his heart broke. He realized she was crying noiselessly and expressionlessly, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. He quickly glanced away, but whether it was to give her some privacy or save himself from guilt, he didn’t know.

He leaned back in his chair. Whatever he had expected, whatever they had all expected, this wasn’t it. And this was his fault. Too dangerous to be left alone according to his other self. And so the happy ending Rose deserved was denied her.

It had been one helluva day. Less than twenty-four hours ago this body, this part human body, had been created as part of a botched regeneration. The meta-crisis. Since then, he had had to save the TARDIS from being incinerated aboard the Dalek spaceship the Crucible, had been shot by the Dalek’s creator, Davros with an energy beam somehow emanating from his fingertips, _very Lord Voldemort, that, only without the wand_ , had destroyed the Daleks, been accused of genocide by his other self, talk about hypocritical, and been dropped off, no, make that dumped off, with Rose in the parallel universe. On that bloody beach of all places. 

He closed his eyes, exhaling a small amount of golden regeneration energy. He was so tired. And he didn’t feel right. This new body felt wrong somehow. And very warm, almost feverish. And he felt like there was something missing. In his head. But he couldn’t quite figure it out. _Too tired_ , he guessed. He’d just have to get used to these new human reactions to adrenalin and other hormones. Maybe just a short nap…

The Doctor awoke suddenly during the approach to Heathrow. He guessed it was very late because it was pitch black outside. For a moment it struck him as odd that he didn’t instantly know what time it was. His Time Sense rarely failed him. Then he remembered. He wasn’t in his own universe. He was in the parallel one, on the parallel Earth he and Rose had nicknamed Pete's World. It would take a little time for his Time Sense to adjust to this universe. Not unlike recovering from jet lag. Then he had a very unpleasant thought. That was assuming his Time Sense hadn’t been affected by the human DNA floating through this new body. It very well could have been. 

Pete Tyler had arranged for a limousine to drive them home and, thankfully, it was waiting for them when they arrived. They disembarked from the zeppelin and all piled into the vehicle. After a short drive, the limo pulled onto the grounds of the Tyler mansion and stopped near the front door. The ground floor windows of the mansion were lit up, presumably in preparation for their arrival, making rectangles of light on the ground surrounding the house. After Jackie, Rose, and the Doctor got out, the limousine drove off. 

“Jackie, this place is beautiful, absolutely beautiful, more beautiful than I remember it,” the Doctor said brightly. And then collapsed.

Rose just barely managed to catch him before he hit the graveled drive. “Doctor! Doctor!” she said urgently. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“I dunno,” he said weakly. “Knees just gave way for a second. Bit tired, I expect. Nothing to worry about.” Rose let go of him as he stood up. “I’m fine now,” he said, and then fainted.

Rose managed to catch him again, almost falling under his weight. Jackie rushed to help her.

“Mum, help me get him to the house!” Rose said urgently. The two women half-carried, half-dragged, the new Doctor along the drive and to the front stairs. Jackie groaned with each step.

“For such as skinny person,” Jackie gasped, “he sure is heavy!”

When they got near the front door, Jackie called for help.

“Pete! Pete! Get out here!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Pete Tyler rushed from the house. When he saw the scene in front of him, he gaped. Whatever he had expected to see, this wasn’t it. Rose and Jackie had the Doctor between them, one of his long arms wrapped around each of their shoulders. Each of the women had one arm wrapped tightly around his waist, the opposite hand securing his arm in place. From the way his head hung down in front of him it was clear he was unconscious. Pete could see they were, with great difficulty, attempting to carry the Doctor up the stairs. 

“Pete Tyler, get your backside over here and help!” his wife ordered.

Pete rushed to help, taking over the burden of carrying the Doctor from his wife. Just then, the Doctor came to and looked at up him. His face lit up.

“Hello, Pete, wonderful to see you!” he said with delight. “I’m the Doctor. You remember my other self, the Doctor.” He tried to stand up, but his knees gave way and he passed out again.

Pete looked questioningly at Jackie. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. Later, she mouthed.

 

The Doctor yawned and stretched as he entered the kitchen. It had changed somewhat from what he remembered. The first time the Doctor and Rose had crossed to the parallel world they had crashed a party at the mansion posing as staff and the Doctor remembered the kitchen then looking like a professional kitchen, cold and utilitarian. Since then, the kitchen had undergone a makeover. The walls had been painted a warm yellow, the old cabinets had been replaced with cherry, and various knickknacks had been placed around, giving it much more of a homey feel. Rose sat at a rectangular wooden table in the center of the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea. 

For a moment he just stopped and looked at her, not completely believing she was there. Or, more precisely, that he was here. With her. This was a moment he had never truly allowed himself to even long for, believing it to be impossible that he would have ever seen her again after the walls of the universe had closed. Rose was wearing a pink zippered hoodie over a matching t-shirt. Blue jeans. Pink socks. Her hair was pulled back into a single ponytail that hung down her back. She was thinner than he remembered, perhaps a bit older, hair both longer and slightly darker than it had been when he had lost her at Canary Wharf. And she was still completely, utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. She must have realized he was there, because she glanced up and smiled.

“Good morning, Rose!” the Doctor said brightly. He grinned widely to try and cover up the fact he had been staring at her. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” He yawned again, not even attempting to stifle it. “I can’t believe I am so tired!” the Doctor complained good-naturedly. “How do you humans stand this? I mean, I knew you lot needed more sleep, but I thought part of the reason you slept so much was just because you liked it. Honestly, how on Earth did you manage to get to the stars when you are so tired all the time?” He yawned again and shook his head, seeming to attempt to shake himself fully awake.

To say Rose was relieved to see him finally awake was an understatement. The Doctor still wore the burgundy striped pyjamas and matching dressing gown of Pete’s that Jackie had lent him the night he had arrived and his hair stood up from his head even more than normal, but he looked well. “Plenty of tea at breakfast,” Rose answered, smiling. She got up and poured him a cup and, after handing it to him, put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. 

“Ah, yes. Tea, gift of the gods. Plenty of tannins, tea. Full of anti-oxidants and free-radicals. Excellent for neural synapses. Did you know there are whole planets that have founded their entire cultures on tea? Very civilized, drinking tea in the morning. If more species drank tea, there would be less interplanetary war.” The Doctor sat down across from her at the table.

“Drinking tea could bring interstellar peace?” Rose tried to keep a straight face. Despite her worry for him, he could still manage to make her laugh. 

“Oh, yes.” The Doctor gestured airily. “Planets where the concept of tea time has taken hold have by and large turned to more peaceful pursuits: the sciences, the arts, cricket. Not Earth, though. Never could figure that one out. Humans were the one exception. I remember Genghis Khan sitting down for a quick cuppa right before a battle.” The Doctor looked thoughtful. Rose recognized that unique puzzled expression the Doctor always wore when trying to solve a difficult problem.

“Was that before or after his assembled hordes tried to break into the TARDIS?” she asked.

“Oh, just before. We were having a cup of tea, and he took offense at something I said. No idea why really, wasn’t a big deal, I was just trying to convince him not to attack a nearby village, and next thing I knew I was having to make a mad dash to the TARDIS.”

As he was relaying the story, he thought he saw an odd look he couldn’t interpret cross Rose’s face, only to be replaced by a smile a split second later. It happened so quickly he wondered if he had imagined it.

The toast popped up. Rose put it on a plate and handed it to him. Without waiting to be asked, she passed him a jar of marmalade and a knife. 

“You remembered,” he said, pleased. “Thank you.”

“How could I forget? The Doctor was almost addicted to the stuff. I figure you being so much like him that you’d like it, too.” she said, smiling. “Just you remember to use the knife and not your fingers. And you better drink your tea before it gets cold,” Rose suggested.

His singular heart sank. Her words were like a dash of cold water in his face. There it was, the elephant in the room. Well, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t guessed she didn’t consider him to really be the Doctor. The confirmation was a little tough to take, though. And he wasn’t really sure how to address the issue with her. When he had regenerated before, he had been able to convince her he was still the Doctor by reminding her of the first word he had ever said to her. _One word. Just one word. I said “Run”_. But she already knew he had those memories, so he wouldn’t be able to use them to convince her.

Plus of course there was the little fact of there being two of him now. Not a particularly good argument in his favor. Regeneration had been hard enough for Rose to accept. How was he going to get her to understand the meta-crisis regeneration, where he had essentially up and split himself into two people?

He forced a smile to his face and obediently took a sip from his cup. The tea was strong, slightly bitter, and almost too hot to drink. “Aaaahhh,” he said, drawing the syllable out. He spread the marmalade on the toast and ate it.

“Thank you,” he said again after he had finished it. “This is really good. I had no idea I was this hungry.” 

Rose became more serious. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked him.

“Fine,” he responded, puzzled. He wasn’t sure if she was asking about his physical, mental, or emotional state. He was about to ask her when they were interrupted by a small boy dressed in a red and white striped shirt and blue jeans who raced into the kitchen. “Rose, Rose!” he yelled. “Guess what! I …” He stopped short when he saw the Doctor and immediately hid behind Rose.

The Doctor leaned over and peered around Rose. “Hello,” he said. “Who do we have here?” 

Rose pulled the child out from behind her and placed him on her lap. She straightened his short blonde hair with her fingers. “This is my little brother Tony.” She turned to the boy. “Tony, this is the Doctor.” The boy put his thumb in his mouth, and Rose turned back to the Doctor. “Don’t mind him. He always does that meeting new people. He’s a bit shy.”

“And why not? You know,” the Doctor leaned forward and said softly to the boy, as if imparting a great secret, “I was a bit shy when I was your age, too.”

The thumb came out of the mouth. “You were?” Tony sounded amazed.

“Oh, yes. Very shy. Very, very shy.” 

Rose watched him, a smile playing around her lips, and tried to imagine the Doctor as a small boy. She found she couldn’t. She realized she wasn’t even sure what he looked like as an adult back then. And of course this Doctor hadn’t been a small boy, she reminded herself.

“Rose said I had to be quiet because you were very sick,” the child stated. “Are you very sick?”

The Doctor looked questioningly up at Rose. She nodded. A puzzled look passed fleetingly across his face and then was replaced by a smile for the boy.

“Oh, well, I was,” he said, “but I’m not anymore. Do I look sick to you?”

Tony shook his head. “So does that mean I don’t have to be quiet anymore?”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t imagine so, unless you like to be quiet. Do you like to be quiet?”

A vigorous shake of the head.

“Well, then, no. No more being quiet.” His face cracked into a wide grin. It was infectious. The boy grinned back.

Rose smiled, and then turned to look at her little brother. “So what am I supposed to guess?” she asked him.

“Dad gave me a new zeppelin,” he announced proudly.

“Wow. Where is it?”

“In my room. Can I go get it and show it to you?”

Rose smiled at him. “Maybe later, okay?” 

“Okay.” Tony seemed satisfied.

The Doctor took another sip from the steaming cup of tea. “This is fantastic. Incredibly restorative. You know I could say it’s almost regenerative, in fact.” The Doctor and Rose smiled at the shared memory of another pot of tea and a previous regeneration.

“Pete always says that about my tea,” Jackie said, striding into the kitchen and crossing over to the table. “How are you, sweetheart? Feeling better?” All of a sudden the Doctor realized she was talking to him. “We were so worried about you.” He cringed as she leaned over and grabbed him in a hug so tight he could barely breathe.

“I’m fine,” he gasped. “Jackie, air, air! Can’t breathe!”

“Oh, no, are you having breathing problems now? Rose, is he having breathing problems now?” Jackie worried.

“Mum, I think you’re squishing him.” Rose tried not to laugh. The Doctor glared at her over Jackie’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Jackie said and abruptly let go of him. “Sorry.”

The Doctor inhaled deeply. “Don’t mention it.”

“Now you, young man,” she addressed the small child, “why don’t you go upstairs and play with your toy zeppelin for a bit. I’ll take you to play outside a bit later.”

“Okay,” the boy answered, and ran out of the room as fast as he had come in.

Now Jackie turned back to the Doctor. “You’re sure you’re feeling better. No problems?” He shook his head. “Good. Then it’s time you were up and about. Not good for a body to be lying in bed all day.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” he said into his cup.

“And you’ll have to get dressed and go ‘round to the shops,” Jackie went on. “You’ll need to pick up some things, you know. Can’t wear the same ratty old suit all the time. And you can’t just go back to your TARDIS and get new stuff.”

Rose saw the Doctor’s face fall, all the previous merriment slowly drain away. “Quite right,” he said, standing up and tightening the belt on his robe. “I’ll go get ready.” He slowly walked out of the room.

Rose glared at her mother. “Why did you go and do that?” she demanded.

“What did I do?” Jackie said defensively. 

“Remind him of the TARDIS!” Rose hissed. “You just don’t get it, do you? To his mind, he’s just lost everything. You didn’t need to remind him of it.”

“But he’s going to need some things. Pete can’t go lending him things forever. They’re not even the same size.” Jackie was bewildered.

Rose tried to stifle a scream of exasperation and stalked out of the room.

 

Pete Tyler’s London was both the same and different from Rose’s London. Oh, many of the landmarks were the same. Big Ben was there, as were Piccadilly and the Tower of London. Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery. Madam Tussauds. The London Eye. Some of the shopping districts were the same. And of course the Thames flowed through both cities. But in many subtle and not so subtle ways they were quite different. In particular, there were four ways that were the most significant.

First, no. 10 Downing Street was not occupied by the Prime Minister, because England had no Prime Minister. Instead, the building was occupied by the President of Great Britain and the legislative body in Whitehall was the Congress rather than the Parliament.

Second, the sounds of jets coming and going from Heathrow Airport were almost entirely absent, due to the almost complete lack of jets in Pete’s London. Instead, the whir of propellers was heard from the zeppelins floating over the city like so many gigantic toy balloons.

Third, UNIT, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, had never been formed because, until recently, Pete Tyler’s Earth had never been invaded by alien life forms intent on taking over the planet. Instead, in response to the recent struggles with aliens, the Torchwood Institute had been formed to investigate alien threats, analyze and reverse engineer alien technology, and deal with the defense of the planet.

And the fourth was by far the most important. Until recently, Pete Tyler’s world had never had the Doctor.

 

The Doctor returned to his room to get dressed, really taking a look at it for the first time. It was a large, sunny room. The walls were painted a pale yellow while the windows, which stretched across the far wall, were trimmed in white and hung with heavy, gold curtains. These were drawn back, revealing a view of the garden below. An antique drum table and two upholstered chairs had been placed in front of the windows. On the left-hand wall was a door leading to an ensuite bathroom which was shared with Rose’s room. 

The hardwood floor, polished to a shine, was mostly covered by an expensive-looking rug in blue, yellow, white and gold. On the walls were framed prints by famous artists. The Doctor recognized the pieces to be the works of Renoir, Manet, and Monet, but the paintings themselves were unfamiliar. All looked similar to other works he knew, but each was slightly off. Several were of well-known locations but from a different vantage point or a different time of day. Others were of floral arrangement he didn’t recognize. 

The bed, covered by a blue and gold duvet, was placed against the right-hand wall and took up the largest part of the room. Somehow in the time he had been in the kitchen someone had come into the room, changing the sheets and making up the bed.

As he looked around the room, he realized he felt… odd. Definitely not himself. He felt an emptiness he couldn’t immediately identify. But, more urgently, he felt a bit warm, almost feverish. And… grimy. A bit of a different feeling, that. He didn’t remember ever feeling grimy. Dirty, yes, but grimy? And he realized he smelled. Not terribly strongly, thankfully, but he was definitely in need of a shower. _Human sweat glands_ , he realized with a start. _That’s disgusting_ , he thought. _Just how human is this body?_

He realized he didn’t know where his clothes were. After searching for a bit through cupboards and a chest of drawers, he found them neatly hanging in an otherwise empty wardrobe in the corner of the room. His t-shirt and blue suit were on separate hangers and appeared to have been cleaned and pressed. His red trainers lay beneath them, and fresh undergarments lay on a shelf above, along with the various contents of his pockets. 

“All my worldly possessions,” he said darkly to himself. “I never thought I’d say this, but Jackie is right. I need at least a change of clothes.”

He looked through the items from his pockets. There was some string, a yo-yo, a bag of dried banana chips, a small box of matches, part of a spatial regulator, an old elastic hair band of Donna’s, his spare pair of glasses, a stethoscope, a wind-up mouse, and several small velvet drawstring bags as well as quite a few other odds and ends. Most noticeably missing were his sonic screwdriver, his psychic paper, and the small lump of TARDIS coral that Donna and his other self had given him.

His heart leapt in fear when he realized the coral was missing. Where could it be? “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic,” he muttered to himself. He forced himself to calm down for a moment and realized Rose had probably put it somewhere where it wouldn’t be disturbed by casual contact, or worse, accidentally broken. After he showered he’d just ask her where it was so he could check on it. 

The Doctor removed his clothes from the wardrobe and laid them on the bed, shoes nearby on the floor. He was about to remove his dressing gown when his right hand suddenly felt as if it were on fire. A burning sensation traveled up his arm and then to his abdomen. The Doctor doubled over, gasping in pain. At the same time, he had a sudden vision of the interior of the TARDIS in flight and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Just as suddenly, the pain and the vision vanished, leaving the Doctor panting as he straightened up. Lost in thought, he began to knead his right hand with his left.


	3. Chapter Two

Rose climbed the stairs to the second floor where she and the Doctor had adjoining rooms. When they had arrived at Pete and her mum’s home late that first night, Jackie had given him the room next door to Rose’s, and this is where she headed to look for him. Rose still didn’t know what to make of this Doctor or their relationship. He was the Doctor, but he wasn’t. She had no idea how he thought of himself and was a bit afraid to ask. 

On the way back to London after being returned to the parallel universe, she had explained to the Doctor she didn’t currently have her own place in London because she was spending so much time with the dimension cannon that it really didn’t make sense for her to have her own flat. Her mum had begged her to move home to spend more time with her, Pete and Tony while she was still in this universe. Now, although she wouldn’t admit it to the new Doctor, she was a little glad she didn’t have her own place, because she wasn’t sure how either of them would react to being forced into a situation of living alone together. Being onboard the TARDIS was one thing, but somehow living in the same flat was something else entirely. Part of her, and not a small part, was secretly furious with the fully Time Lord Doctor for forcing the new Doctor and her into this situation. She felt manipulated, rejected, and abandoned. But she couldn’t stay angry with him. Instead, her moods swung wildly between fury, hurt, and resignation. She knew that, despite his high-handed way of handling the situation between the three of them, he had done what he believed was truly best for her.

Or at least that’s what she hoped. Deep down, she had always been afraid she had entirely misread her relationship with the Doctor, had always been worried that he hadn’t cared for her as much as she did for him. Leaving her in the parallel world with a copy of himself would seem to confirm that. If he really cared for her, he wouldn’t have done that, would he?

Thinking of the Time Lord made her heart break. It had been almost too much to be with him and then have him leave again. And this time he had left her on purpose. Well, she had gotten over the pain of losing him last time and she could and would again. She knew that Donna would take good care of him. Rose more than anyone else knew how lonely the Time Lord was and how much he needed someone.

Rose realized her face was damp and hurriedly wiped it with her hands. It would do no good for this Doctor to see her crying again. He had seen enough of that on the trip back to London. Pausing on the stairs, she sniffed and composed herself before continuing on to the second floor.

The night they had arrived, his condition reminded Rose of the Time Lord Doctor’s regeneration after the Game Station. Rose insisted no one else disturb him, knowing that this Doctor had essentially just gone through another regeneration, although of a different sort, and knowing his body needed to rest to stabilize in its current form. The new Doctor had told her he was part human, that he would age along with her, and that there would be no more regenerations for him. True perhaps, but Rose didn’t necessarily trust it. The Time Lord Doctor had been wrong before, and even if this Doctor was right, that didn’t mean that this regeneration he was currently experiencing would go smoothly. She had been terrified the events on the Crucible happening so soon after being created from both Time Lord and Donna’s human DNA might have damaged his body beyond repair and, without any more regenerations, she was worried he could die.

That night, as they had carried him to the main staircase, Jackie had wanted to bring him a cup of tea, but Rose had refused. 

_“No, Mum, not right now,” Rose said. “I’m not sure, but it could be dangerous for him if we wake him. Let me just get him into bed. You go get him something I can change him into, alright?”_

_Pete and Rose carried the new Doctor up to the second floor. Jackie directed them into the spare bedroom adjacent to Rose’s, and then left in search of a pair of men’s pyjamas. When she returned, carrying pyjamas and a dressing gown, she found Pete and Rose had already placed him on the bed and had removed his jacket and trainers. He was still unconscious._

_“Is he even breathing?” Jackie worried._

_“Yeah, Mum,” Rose said. “Why don’t you put on a pot of tea?”_

_“You told me not to bring him any.”_

_“Not for him, for us,” Rose said. “I don’t know about you, but I could really use a cup right about now.”_

_When her mother left the room, Rose and Pete turned back to the man on the bed. Rose was overcome with a sense of déjà vu. Undressing an unconscious Doctor on the bed after a bad regeneration. A pair of borrowed pyjamas. A cup of tea. Now if you just throw in the Powell estate, killer Father Christmases, and an alien invasion, and it would be the Doctor’s last regeneration all over again, she thought._

_“So what happened?” Pete asked as they undressed him. “And where’s Mickey?”_

_Rose quickly outlined the events of the past twenty-four hours, starting with her arrival on her home Earth, and ending with their arrival in Norway, only mentioning that that is where they ended up, and not what had actually happened on the beach. In the process, she also told him of Mickey’s decision to say behind. She then explained the meta-crisis regeneration to Pete as best she could._

_“So this isn’t him?” Pete asked. “This isn’t the Doctor?”_

_Rose hesitated._

_“No,” she finally said. “Well, he is, sorta, in that he’s not someone else. He’s the Doctor, kinda, but he’s not. He’s got all the same memories and thought processes, though… I don’t know how to explain it because I’m not sure myself. I never did get a clear explanation of what happened, at least not that I understood. But the Doctor, my Doctor, left us here and went back to the other universe.”_

_They had finished changing the Doctor’s clothes and had tucked him into bed without waking him. Pete watched her for a minute. It was obvious there was a lot more to the story than what she was saying. After all, he hadn’t expected her to return to this universe. He knew her well enough, though, to know she’d tell him if he needed to know._

_“I’m going down to the kitchen for a cup of tea,” he said finally. “And then I believe your mother and I are going to have a conversation about her deciding to follow you to the other universe.”_

_Now that was a conversation she did not want to be a part of, Rose thought to herself as her step-father left the room. As angry with her mother as she was over the same issue, the thought of being a part of that domestic dust-up was more than she could take._

_Instead, Rose sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the unconscious man in it. The collar of his pyjama top was crooked. As she slowly reached out to straighten it, she realized her hand was shaking. She pulled it back, leaving the collar as it was, and only stopped the shaking by clasping her hand tightly in her other hand. Taking a deep breath, she got up and crossed the room to the ensuite bathroom._

_The bathroom was shared with her room and had doors opening up to each bedroom. She walked through it, closing the door to the Doctor’s bedroom, and entered her own room. She really needed a shower and a change of clothes. Pulling a clean vest top, shorts, and knickers out of a drawer, Rose laid them on the bed and started pulling off her clothes. She toed off her shoes while she took off her jacket._

_Holding the jacket in her hands, she stared at it. This jacket, its blue leather beginning to be scuffed and worn, had been her daily attire for more than a year. On every jump, every trip to a parallel world, she had worn it like a uniform, like armor against whatever unknown she would be facing that day. It had begun to symbolize her efforts to find him, to find the Doctor and get back to him. And she had found him. And on that same shitty beach in Norway it had all gone to hell. He had abandoned her. He had manipulated her into accepting a copy of himself and he had left her._

_As she stared at the jacket, it began to shake in her quivering hands. She flung it away from her and it landed across the room, knocking into a lamp before landing in a heap on the floor. The lamp it hit wobbled twice before coming to a rest. Enraged and in grief, she turned and reached for the nearest object she could find, which turned out to be a vase on the cupboard. She seized it and flung it as hard as she could. After it crashed into the wall and shattered, Rose sank to the floor, sobbing._

_Much later, having eventually cried herself out, she showered and changed and returned to the new Doctor’s bedroom. He didn’t appear to have moved a muscle. It was late, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep even if she tried so she decided to tidy up. Tiptoeing around his bedroom, she picked up his cast off Converse, his t-shirt, his suit. The suit was dirty, possibly as a result of him being thrown to the floor when Davros… did whatever the heck it was he did. There was also a small singe mark on the front, which probably happened at the same time._

_She glanced at the Doctor on the bed. He was lucky to be alive. He had said on the beach he wouldn’t regenerate, she reminded herself. Had that energy bolt hit him slightly higher or been slightly stronger, he might not have lived long enough to even get to the beach._

_No, I am not thinking about the beach, Rose thought._

_As she looked around the room to see if there was anything else to pick up, she noticed someone, probably her mum, had left a mug of tea for her on the small table next to the Doctor’s bed. Picking it up and taking a sip, she decided to clean out his suit pockets in preparation to getting it cleaned. Gingerly, she put her hand in a pocket and started to pull out the contents. Five minutes, and an empty mug of tea, later, she had a large pile of what could mostly be described as junk sitting in front of her. It didn’t seem possible that the quantity, the sheer volume, of items could have emerged from his pockets, and she wondered, not for the first time, if it were possible that his pockets could be bigger on the inside. To her amazement, among the various items in his pockets was a stethoscope, and she wondered when, and why, the Doctor had started to carry one around with him. Well, at least that, unlike almost everything else, would be useful. She also found the small branch of TARDIS coral that the Doctor had given him. He’d been worried about it when she and Pete had carried him into the house, coming to just long enough to ask her to take care of it for him. She set those two things aside and put everything else on the top shelf of the wardrobe in the corner of his room._

_Placing the coral on the table, she took the stethoscope and crossed to the bed. Sitting on the edge, and being grateful for her Torchwood first aid training, she used it to listen to his heart. His singular heart. Well, he said he only had one. Looks aside, this man was not identical to the Time Lord who had left her, left them, on the beach. And she needed to remember that._

_Using the stethoscope again, this time she listened to his lungs. They sounded clear. So far, so good._

_Rose yawned. She definitely needed some sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually slept. That worried her, not because of the lack of sleep, but because she was worried she might fall so deeply asleep that she wouldn’t hear him from her bedroom if he needed her, even if she left the doors open. So that left sleeping in here. She looked around the room. The chairs, although comfortable enough for sitting on, did not look comfortable enough to sleep in. And she certainly wasn’t climbing into bed with him. That would be just too... weird. Especially if he happened to wake up before her. Nope, not happening._

_That left the floor. Well, it’s not as if she hadn’t slept on the floor before, and in much worse places than the Tyler mansion. She went back to her room and gathered a pile of bedding, carrying it back to the Doctor’s room and creating a make shift bed on the floor out of piled blankets and pillows. Sinking down onto them, she found it was as least as comfortable as the cot she had sometimes used at Torchwood between jumps. She was asleep by the time her head hit the pillow._

_Rose awoke suddenly to the sounds of moaning. Terrified, she threw off her blanket and almost leapt to his side. “No, no,” he moaned. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”_

_“Shhhh, shhhh,” she whispered, feeling his head for any sign of fever. It felt normal._

_“No,” he whispered sadly. “Donna. Rose.” And she realized he was in the midst of a nightmare._

_“Shhhh,” she whispered again and took his hand in hers._

_And immediately dropped it because it felt like it was on fire._

_She checked his forehead again for signs of fever. Normal. Maybe. She realized she wasn’t sure what his temperature should be. As a Time Lord, the Doctor had had a significantly lower body temperature from humans. Who knew what the normal temperature should be for a partial Time Lord with some human DNA?_

_Rose lifted his hand again. Again it burned to the touch, but this time her touch seemed to soothe him so, despite the pain, she held his hand as he calmed and sunk more deeply to sleep._

_The next day, the Doctor’s right hand had been very warm, but not impossibly hot to the touch, and Rose hoped that he might be recovering. Still very worried about him, she spent the bulk of the day in his room and, that night, decided to sleep on the floor in his room again. Instead of sleeping, though, Rose sat in a chair, watching him and hugging herself. Eventually, she got up and crossed to the bed. He was so still. She sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling his head and hand for any signs of fever and was relieved to find they both felt normal._

_It struck her how, while sleeping, he looked so young, so vulnerable. Rose held his hand in one hand and gently brushed a lock of his dark hair off his forehead with the other. Without thinking, she bent over and brushed her lips against the same spot._

_“Please get better, Doctor,” she whispered._

_Almost as if in response, his hand started rapidly rising in temperature and he began to toss and turn._

_“No, no,” he quietly moaned. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Rose.”_

_“Shhhh, shhhh,” she whispered, caressing his forehead. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”_

_Slowly he quieted, eventually falling back into a deep sleep. His hand slowly cooled to a normal temperature. Deep in thought, Rose watched him for a long time before eventually sleeping herself._

_The rest of the night was uneventful, so the following morning Rose bundled up her bedding, carried it to her own room and dumped it in a pile in the center of her bed. That night she left both of the doors of the bathroom open to listen for him and tried to sleep in her own bed. Instead, all night she tossed and turned, ears pricked to hear if he called out again. Again, in the middle of the night, he seemed tormented by a nightmare, and again she rushed to his bed to soothe him._

_The following day, he woke for a few minutes, and Rose let her mum bring him some tea._

_“Here you go, sweetheart,” Jackie murmured to him. “Feeling any better?”_

_Rose held up his head so he could take a sip of the tea. “Yes,” he whispered. “Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome,” Jackie began to say, but the Doctor had already fallen back asleep._

This was the fourth morning since their arrival back.

Rose arrived on the second floor landing. The hall was empty and silent. “Doctor,” Rose called, knocking on his bedroom door. Perhaps he was asleep again. “Doctor, are you alright?” She tried the knob. It wasn’t locked so she slowly opened the door and entered. “Doctor?” 

The Doctor didn’t respond. Still dressed in Pete’s old pyjamas and dressing gown, he stood at the window staring out at the garden below, absently rubbing his right hand with his left. His blue pinstriped suit lay neatly at the foot of the bed, his red trainers on the floor below it.

“Doctor, are you alright?” Rose was getting concerned. 

“What?” he said, startled. “Oh, Rose, sorry, didn’t hear you come in. Have you been waiting long?”

“It’s been over two hours. Are you alright?” she repeated.

“What, me? Fine, absolutely fine, couldn’t be better. One hundred percent, tip top shape, fit as a fiddle.” He grinned for a moment, and then became serious. “Rose, was I ill?”

“Well, I don’t know if you would call it that, but yeah, sorta.”

“How long was I out?” he asked curiously.

“Three days.”

“Three days!” he exclaimed. “Three? Three whole days?” In shock, the Doctor sank down on the foot of the bed.

Rose nodded. “Three, three and a half, yeah.” She shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “We got here late Tuesday night, and now it’s Saturday.”

“Wow. Three, three and a half days.” He couldn’t take it in. “What was wrong?”

“You mostly just slept. You sorta woke up a bit for a minute or two yesterday, but then went right back to sleep. Oh, and your hand got really warm a couple of times.” 

The Doctor lifted up his hand and stared at it, puzzled. 

“Anyway,” Rose continued, “it really reminded me of when you, well the Doctor, regenerated, you know, and you, well the Doctor, slept and slept because something was going wrong and I thought that, well, because you got shot by Davros and you had fought the Daleks so close to regenerating…” She trailed off because she realized she was rambling, but the Doctor was nodding.

“Possibly, possibly. Probably, even. Forced meta-regeneration, throw in some of Donna’s DNA and a war with the Daleks…” He nodded to himself. “Rose Tyler, you’re brilliant. Really, really brilliant.” The Doctor beamed at her, and then looked troubled.

“But three days…” He shook his head, grimacing. “This human DNA must be slowing down my body’s healing processes. Normally recovering from a regeneration only takes a day or so.” He forced a grin on his face. “Still, no matter. Won’t be doing it again I suppose, so it’s not as if I’m establishing a new pattern.” 

_That’s a disturbing thought._ Inwardly, he cringed.

Then the Doctor remembered something. 

“Rose, were you the one who emptied my pockets?”

“Yeah. Your suit needed to be cleaned, and I sure as hell didn’t want anyone else to stick their hands in there. I just pulled everything out and stuck it on the shelf.” Her mouth twitched. “I’ll never forget the time I put my hand in the Doctor’s pocket and found a rat.”

“I told you it wasn’t a rat, it was a meerla,” he protested. 

“Three weeks,” she said. “Three weeks of shots.”

“Well, you disturbed her. And she did apologize.”

“And what about in New Kyoto? When someone wanted me to get his sonic screwdriver?”

“That belonged to Jack,” he insisted. “And I still have no idea how it got in there.”

“It wasn’t in Jack’s pocket, although it did seem more like something that would belong to him. I was so embarrassed.” She started to giggle and he laughed along with her. God, he thought, it was so good to see her laugh. 

He suddenly remembered what he originally was going to ask. “Rose, where’s the TARDIS coral?”

“Downstairs in Dad’s workshop. You asked me to put it someplace cool and quiet until you could set up a growing tank and equipment. Don’t you remember?”

The Doctor shook his head.

“Well, I’m not surprised. You were pretty out of it when we got here. We can go check on it before we leave, okay?”

“Sounds great.” He stood up. “Are you ready to go?” 

“Yes, but you’re not.” She nodded first at him, and then at the suit still lying on the bed. “Unless you are going to try to tackle London in your jymjams.” She smiled. 

“What?” He glanced down at himself. “Oh. No. Saved the world in jymjams once as you might recall. Might be tempting fate.”

That same odd look he had seen earlier crossed Rose’s face again for a second and again was replaced by a smile, and he wondered what it meant. 

“Then you better shower and get dressed,” Rose said with mock seriousness. She gestured at the door. “I’ll just let you get to it, then.”

“Right,” he nodded. His smile faded as soon as she left the room. He winced in pain and began to knead his right hand.


	4. Chapter Three

Saturday afternoons in the streets of London, both Pete’s and Rose’s, were usually packed with people, and this Saturday was no different. Groups of teenagers roamed the streets and shops, enjoying a day off. Mothers, unruly children in tow, attempted to buy groceries and other necessities. Tourists filled the city, visiting the Palace, the museums, and the parks. And almost everyone else just went out to enjoy a rare day of perfect summer weather.

Since it was Saturday, the business offices of Rand Trust were closed, as were the offices of many other businesses on Griffith Street. The buildings were for the most part empty, the employees among those out enjoying the lovely afternoon. But at Rand Trust, Tom Miller was still at his computer, finishing up some last minute work before he left for a long planned holiday in Italy with his fiancée, Stephanie. A pre-honeymoon she called it, a trip to enjoy before all the lunacy of planning the wedding hit them. Stephanie’s mother, Ruby, though unwanted, was taking over all the wedding plans and driving Steffi crazy. But this was Rand Trust’s busiest season, and Tom’s boss, Ron, had said Tom could take the time off only on the condition that he finish the financials before he left. So instead of enjoying the warm afternoon with Stephanie, he was hunched over a computer typing a meaningless report he didn’t want to write and no one would ever read. He consoled himself that by this time Monday he’d be in Rome, or perhaps it was Florence. Steffi had been in charge of the itinerary.

Tom got up from his desk to get himself a drink from the vending machine down the hall. While he was gone, the lights in the office flickered. 

A few minutes later, Tom came back, a drink in one hand and a candy bar in the other. When he got to his desk, he put the chocolate bar in his mouth and used his hand to free a space on the desk for his drink. It wasn’t until he sat down at his desk that he found his computer screen was blank.

“No, no, no!” Tom yelled, tapping the keys rapidly. There was no response from the computer. “No!” he shouted, tapping again and again. After five minutes of Tom attempting to get the computer to work, it was obvious nothing was going to restore the file. Along with the report, all his raw data was also on the computer and he’d have to wait for the computer techs to try to retrieve the data on Monday. Ten weeks of analysis right down the drain. There went Italy.

“No!” Tom moaned, leaning forward and resting his head on the keyboard. Suddenly, he heard a loud crackling noise and his body was surrounded by a brilliant blue light. When the light faded, Tom had disappeared. 

 

After the Doctor had showered and changed back into his blue suit, hair still damp, he met Rose back in the kitchen. His eyes widened as he noticed Rose had changed into a summery top and miniskirt. 

“Doctor?” she said.

“Hmm?” he said, hoping she hadn’t noticed him ogling her legs.

She inclined her head, trying to hide a smile. “This way.”

Rose led the way down into the cellar. Like most other cellars, it was cool and slightly damp. The large stones which made up the walls of the foundation had been painted white to allow for the most reflection of light possible, but somehow the overall effect was still one of gloominess.

At the bottom of the stairs was a hallway that led to a series of doors, and Rose began pointing out what was behind each.

“Utility room, laundry, storage, wine cellar, more storage.” She gestured to each in turn. At the end of the hall she stopped. “And this is Dad’s workshop,” she said, opening the door.

The workshop was larger, far larger, than the Doctor would have expected for a workshop in a cellar, and he realized it must extend under the bulk of the house. Unlike the hallway they had just left, this room had no sense of gloominess as it was well lit with both indirect lighting and spotlights for work areas. There was one central workbench running through the center of the room with several stools tucked underneath one edge. Cupboards and workbenches lined the long walls, a variety of large power tools placed periodically along one wall. A number of these were covered to protect them from dust. Against the far wall were more power tools which could be moved to the center of the room for use and then put back. 

“Wow,” he said.

Rose nodded, smiling. “Turns out Dad fancies himself a bit of an inventor as well as an entrepreneur, so when he bought this place he decided to put in a deluxe workshop with every state of the art piece of equipment he could find.”

“I see a lot of carpentry tools,” he said.

“That was from when he decided to build Tony a Wendy house out back.” She pointed to a series of cupboards. “He’s got his electronics phase there, his metal working phase over there, his mad scientist phase in the corner, and his auto mechanic phase is out in the garage.”

“Mad scientist phase?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, that’s when he went out and bought basically a whole chemistry lab and installed it down here.” Rose laughed. “Mum was not too pleased with all the explosions that happened for the next couple of months. Kept on saying things about setting a bad example for Tony.”

The Doctor grinned and then sniffed thoughtfully. “The humidity is less in here.”

“Automatic air filtration system. Cleans the air when Dad’s working in here and removes excess moisture.”

“Does it just remove moisture, or can you add it as well?” he asked curiously.

“It does both,” Rose responded. “Complete temperature and humidity control as well as hepa filtration. We’ve just never needed to worry about adding humidity. You know how London is.”

He nodded absently, looking around. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Over here.” She led the way across the room to a door almost hidden behind a freestanding drill press. She opened the door and turned on the light. 

It was a small closet, empty except for a sturdy table with a fish tank containing the TARDIS coral. It was nestled in a pile of soft, damp sand. A dish of water sat next to it, slowly adding humidity to the surrounding air.

“Oh, there you are,” he cooed, bending over and sticking his hand in the tank. He gently stroked the branch. “How are you doing down here? Sorry I haven’t been down here before now.”

“I’ve been checking on her every day. I think she’s okay,” Rose said, smiling. 

He glanced up at her, eyebrows raised.

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? She comes from the old TARDIS, and she was definitely a she.” Rose stuck her hand in the tank and caressed the branch. “Plus she just feels like a she.”

“Rose Tyler, you never cease to amaze me,” he said wonderingly. Then he turned his attention back to the TARDIS coral branch. “Well, I think she’s okay for now. She needs to acclimate to the energy of this universe before she can utilize it to grow.”

“Diesel in a petrol engine?”

“Yep. She’s still young enough to make the transition. It may take some time, though,” he warned.

“How much time?” she asked.

“Ooh, not too sure, really. Never done this before, you know. At least a couple of weeks, I reckon.”

“Is the humidity okay?” Rose wondered. “I was worried about that.”

“I think so. Let me check.” The Doctor carefully removed the TARDIS branch from the tank. He lifted it to his face, smelled it and gently licked it.

Rose burst out laughing. He truly was like the other Doctor, who she had seen analyze all sorts of things by taste, including, once, a wood paneled wall in Scotland.

“What?”

She shook her head, trying to stop laughing. “So how is she?”

“Seems fine,” he said. “What?”

She shook her head again, trying to compose herself. It didn’t work and she began to giggle again.

“What?” he demanded. “The sense of taste is a perfectly valid method of collecting data.”

“I’m sure it is,” she laughed. “Just put her back and let’s go.”

After a quick snack, Rose and the Doctor headed out to brave the crowds and acquire him a new wardrobe. Rose remembered that despite having met the Time Lord in Henrik’s, he hated to do anything as domestic as clothes shopping. In fact, in the years she had traveled with him, she began to suspect that blowing up shops was more his style than frequenting them. Oh, he enjoyed souvenir shopping in outdoor markets on far-flung planets, and he loved the idea of having little shops in places like hospitals, museums, and spaceports, but actual department store shopping for clothing and other necessities? Way too domestic. The few times Rose had dragged him somewhere he had fidgeted, whined, or, in his previous regeneration, glowered so much that invariably she would send him back to the TARDIS to “make repairs”. She suspected that this Doctor would be the same way, but there was no getting out of the trip this time. So off they headed to Rowling Street. 

Less than a mile from Griffith Street, Rowling Street was a new business district in a revitalized section of London. Formerly consisting of empty lots and abandoned warehouses, it now was filled with all sorts of shops, large department stores and tiny boutiques, toy stores and bookstores, tea shops and pubs. 

Rose drove her bright red Mini Cooper from the mansion to the shopping district. Although she loved her little car, she was fairly certain the Doctor didn’t feel the same way. It had hardly any head room or leg room, and after he had managed to fold his tall, thin body into the car, the Doctor’s knees were practically up to his chin and his head barely cleared the roof. He was being a great sport about it though, she noticed, and soon they pulled into the car park.

The largest store on Rowling Street was Erving’s Department Store. When Rose first arrived in the parallel universe, she had expected to find Henrik’s to be a major department store, as it had been on her own world when she had worked there before meeting the Doctor. Instead she found that Henrik’s was a tiny shoe repair shop and Erving’s was the store everyone seemed to shop at. Taking up most of a city block, Erving’s had become the central magnet that drew shoppers to Rowling Street. On any given day of the week it was usually crowded, but on this particular Saturday, it was jammed with what seemed like wall to wall people. 

Although Rose loved to shop, and had shopped in markets on distant planets all over her home universe, she hated fighting with crowds this big. But since Erving’s had everything they needed and then some, this was the best place to start. She looped her arm through the Doctor’s and led the way into the store. 

In menswear, Rose attempted to get him to look at a variety of styles of clothes, but she wasn’t surprised when he chose mostly what the Time Lord Doctor would have chosen. To his consternation, she had him measured for new suits, rather than buying off the rack, and a tiny, evil part of herself laughed inwardly at the expressions on his face as the salesman measured his inner leg. Afterward they set about supplying him with the rest of a wardrobe. Every time he actually picked something out, she added two or three more of the same item to the pile, knowing he had to completely start over, literally owning only the clothes on his back. As the pile grew, she made arrangements with the sales woman to charge everything to her father’s account and to have it delivered to the mansion. The suits would have to be delivered anyway, and there really wasn’t any room in the boot of the car for the rest.

As they headed from menswear to shoes, something sparkly caught Rose’s eye, and she stopped for a moment to look at the jewelry counter. As she looked at earrings, she noticed the Doctor standing in front of a glass case containing brooches. He was staring at a set of pins all in the shapes of cats. 

“I thought you didn’t like cats,” she said, and then inwardly kicked herself, remembering that was the other Doctor.

He shook his head and didn’t seem to notice her momentary consternation. “It’s not about the cats, it’s about the pins,” he said, bewildered. “Do you see these two? This gray one, and the white, fluffy one?” He pointed out two of the pins. “And that one as well. These pins seem so familiar to me, but I can’t remember why.”

“Well, whoever wore those had horrible taste,” she replied.

His eyes widened as, for a split second, the Doctor had a vision of curly blonde hair and a garishly colored suit. He remembered why the pins looked so familiar. Well, at least the pins weren’t as bad as the celery he used to wear. He shuddered. Thankfully, his fashion sense had improved with his tenth form and hadn’t been affected by the meta-crisis.

“You can say that again,” he agreed, thinking of some of, or perhaps most of, his previous selves.

A mischievous smile crossed her face. “Whoever wore those had horrible taste,” she said again, this time poking him playfully. He grinned back.

As they began to walk across the store, heading for the shoe department again, Rose suddenly stopped. 

“Oh, I forgot,” she said, hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand.

“What?”

“Ties.”

“What about them?”

“You don’t own any, remember? Why don’t you go look for some and then get some shoes while I go look for some clothes myself. Just have them put on Pete’s account and delivered with the rest of the stuff. I’ll meet you back at the lifts in say, a half hour?”

He nodded and headed off.

“Oi, Doctor.” He turned. “That way.” She pointed in the other direction.

As the Doctor left in search of ties, Rose went to the women’s department to look for clothes for herself. It took her a while to find what she wanted, as it had been years since she had actually shopped for herself. She had left it for her mum to do, having had no interest in normal, day to day living. Domestics, her first Doctor would have put it.

But now, well, she needed to get on with her life. It was obvious she wasn’t ever going back to the Doctor and her old life now. And this Doctor… she didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t her Doctor, but… 

She remembered the words whispered in her ear, the words she had longed to hear for so long. The words that had resulted in that kiss on the beach, when for just one moment she had forgotten he wasn’t her Doctor. For that one moment it had been wonderful. And then she had realized her Doctor had left her while they had been otherwise occupied. She was a bit ashamed of herself at how quickly and easily she had accepted this Doctor as a substitute. And embarrassed that her Doctor had seen that she was obviously so shallow. Maybe he had been right to leave her. 

The manipulative bastard.

But as angry as she was at him, none of that was _this_ Doctor’s fault. 

She sighed and went about looking for things in her size. That was the easy part. The hard part was finding something suitable to wear. She had plenty of casual clothes, but she could use more stuff for work. She needed things that looked classy, were durable, and were easy to run in. Although she wasn’t going to be universe hopping anymore, Torchwood field agents still managed to do quite a lot of running. And right now she didn’t even want to see that blue leather jacket again, let alone wear it.

Finally, after she had gathered an armload of things to try on, she entered the changing area. She closed herself in a tiny stall, drawing the curtain behind her, and hung the new clothes on a hook on the wall. Next she stripped to her bra and knickers, pulled the first item, a turquoise blouse, off the hanger, and put it on. 

It was way too big.

She pulled it off and rechecked the size. It was the one she normally wore. She double-checked the tag in the top she had worn to the store. It was a full size smaller than she remembered. Huh.

She checked the size of the skirt that she had been wearing. Huh. If that was right, all these clothes she had brought in here were at least one to two sizes too big. Had she really lost that much weight?

She stood there and examined herself in the full length mirror on the wall. Oh my god. How had she not noticed how thin she was getting? Her time spent in the gym over the years had made her slim and muscular, but this… The last year spent crossing the Void time after time after time endlessly searching for the Doctor had taken a greater toll on her physically than she had realized.

Well. None of the clothes she had picked out would fit, so there wasn’t any point trying them on. She started pulling her own clothes back on.

Above her, the lights began to flicker. She glanced up. 

Odd.

She pulled her shirt back on over her head.

The lights went out. Weird. The weather wasn’t bad. And it wasn’t so hot that an increase in a/c usage should cause a black out. 

Rose pulled her mobile out of her pocket but before she could make a call the lights came  
back on and stayed on.

Inwardly she shrugged and put her mobile back in her pocket.

 

The Doctor, having first been distracted by electric personal grooming products, _(what the hell was that for, why would anyone use that, wouldn’t that be painful?)_ finally made it back to men’s accessories. He found the ties and pulled several suitable ones from the display. Out of idle curiosity, he flipped one over to read the label. And couldn’t read it.

Well, he could read it, sort of, after a fashion, if he held it waaaaay out and squinted hard enough.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out his glasses. They didn’t help. Oh. Yeah. Plain glass. He sighed. Evidently this business of having a bit of human DNA was going to be a bit more complicated than he thought.

He took off the glasses and stuck them back in his pocket. Well, that’s just wizard, he thought disgustedly.

 

On her way out of the changing room, Rose handed the stack of unwanted clothes to the teenaged shop assistant monitoring the area. A computerized register sat next to her on the counter.

“Didn’t find anything you like?” the girl asked. She was young with long, bleached blonde hair and a bit too much make-up. 

Rose felt a wave of déjà vu, but in reverse. How many times had she been on the other side of the counter when she had worked at Henrik’s?

“Sorry,” Rose said in sympathy. She knew the girl would have to put everything back on the racks. “I accidentally picked out the wrong sizes. I guess I lost some weight.”

“Ooooh, I wish I had your problem. All I ever seem to do is gain. When I pick out the wrong size, it’s always too small.” 

“Well, I still need some stuff, so I’ll probably be back in a bit.”

“If you need any help with anything, just let me know,” the girl offered. “I’ll be here. I’m on ‘til 6.”

“Okay,” Rose smiled. “Thanks.”

As Rose left the area, she didn’t notice a crackling sound or a momentary flash of blue light behind her.

After purchasing the ties, the Doctor was heading back to shoes when he became distracted by a display of footballs arranged in a pyramid. He wondered if Tony had a football. He knew children started to learn how to play the game young, at least they had in the other universe, and he wondered if Tony knew how to play. In all his years on Earth he had never played football, didn’t remember even having ever attended a match, but for a split second he smiled while in his mind he saw himself out in the Tyler garden playing football with Tony and Rose. 

He shook himself out of his reverie and spied a different display farther into the department. He picked up a ball and bounced it in his hand, testing its weight. Cricket, now that had been his game. He remembered being quite a good bowler at one time. He wondered if he still would be. Physical skills changed from regeneration to regeneration. It wasn’t just a matter of change of body type. Actual muscle memory built up from years of practice by one regeneration would be gone in an instant with the creation of new muscles. Nowhere had that been more apparent than with Venusian Aikido, a skill his third self had used with ease, but none of his other selves had been able to master. 

Shoes, he reminded himself. He wasn’t here for footballs or cricket balls. Now where did they keep the trainers?

 

Rose, having picked out more clothing in smaller sizes, returned to the changing area and tried them on, deciding to keep some, return others. After looking for a few minutes, she finally found a shop assistant to box up her things and arrange for delivery. Rose had been disappointed to find that the teenaged shop girl was gone. It had been nice to talk to her. As much as she had complained about her own days of working in a shop, it had been those days at Henrik’s which had basically been the last days of her childhood, the last days of innocence. Oh, she had considered herself quite worldly at the time. By the time she had started working there, she had already dumped Jimmy Stone and was dating Mickey. 

But that was before the before the Gelth. It was before the Slitheen and Downing St. It was before the Doctor.

The Doctor had opened her eyes to a whole new world, a whole new universe, actually, a better one where you stood up for what you believed in when everyone else ran, where you made things happen instead of let things happen to you. Despite how it had ended with the Doctor, no matter how angry she was with him at the moment, she would never regret her time with him, not one second.

 _I hope he’s okay,_ a tiny voice inside her said.

 _Shut up_ , she told herself firmly. _I am not going to cry again_.

Thinking of the Doctor reminded her that it was getting late and _this_ Doctor was probably already waiting for her. She had better go find him. And she reminded herself that none of this was _his_ fault. He had enough problems of his own without having to deal with her moodiness and tears. 

Plastering a fake smile on her face, she went in search of him.


	5. Chapter Four

Instead of half an hour, it had been more than an hour when Rose finally made it back to the lifts, and she saw that the Doctor was waiting for her. He was bouncing lightly on his toes, but she couldn’t tell whether it was due to impatience or just an excess of energy. If he was truly like the other Doctor it was probably a bit of both. As soon as he saw her, his face broke into a huge grin and her traitorous heart flipped. 

As they had been shopping, Rose had been struck by how quickly they had fallen into the familiar roles of the Doctor and Rose: the joking, the teasing, the silly flirtation that had so often characterized her relationship with the Doctor in the other universe. This man that was with her was so much like the man that she had fallen in love with. Well, they had both told her that they were essentially the same man, same looks, same thoughts, same memories. But the gulf between essentially the same and actually the same was as wide as the void between parallel universes. And she in particular needed to remember that. It wouldn’t be fair to the man she was with if she forgot herself and started believing him to be someone he was not. Like she had on the beach. 

But, she reminded herself, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. She had been friends, best friends even, with the Doctor long before she knew she loved him, and she saw no reason not to be friends with this Doctor. She smiled.

“Hello, Rose,” he beamed. “Find what you need?”

“I think so. More importantly, did you?”

He grimaced. “I certainly hope so. I don’t want to go through that again. Hungry?”

“Starved,” she said. “Let’s get out of here and find something to eat.” She looped her arm through his and dragged him out to the street.

They walked that way, arm in arm, down the street, chatting and window shopping. It was so familiar, walking together through crowded London streets. They could have been in their home universe, thought the Doctor, except for the presence of zeppelins floating overhead. Suddenly, he sensed something familiar and he stopped cold. Rose almost fell as her forward momentum warred with the Doctor’s arm holding her back. Rose felt a momentary panic at the grim look on his face.

“Doctor, what is it?” she asked worriedly. Her experience traveling with the Doctor combined with her years at Torchwood had her on guard.

“Do you smell what I smell?” he said with a raise of his eyebrow.

She sniffed the air.

“I, uh, I smell chips,” she said hesitantly.

He grinned at her.

“I smell chips!” Rose laughed. To her surprise, they smelled really good. For the first time in ages, chips smelled good to her. She looked around. The Doctor, being much taller, spotted the source of the delicious aroma first and headed toward the restaurant, dragging her along.

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a booth in a café, eating chips and drinking orange Vitex.

“Mmm, these are gorgeous,” Rose said, sprinkling a bit more vinegar on her chips. “I haven’t had chips in… God, I don’t know how long.”

“Really?” For some reason the Doctor couldn’t put his finger on this worried him. Rose Tyler not eating chips? It just seemed… wrong somehow. 

“How come?” he asked.

“I dunno,” she said, looking away from him. She realized belatedly that her tone indicated the exact opposite. And of course she knew. She and the Doctor had gone out for chips so frequently that she had begun to associate the aroma of chips with him. The scent reminded her so strongly of him and, therefore, their separation at Canary Wharf that for over a year it had made her nauseated. The first and only time she had tried to eat them, to try to prove to Mickey she was okay, everything was fine, her body had reacted so strongly she had had to literally run to the loo before her body violently rid her of them. But she didn’t really want to go into all of that with this Doctor. In fact, it was such a revealing, and therefore private, reaction she knew she wouldn’t have shared it with her Doctor, either. She hadn’t even told her mother. The only reason Mickey knew was because he had been there.

Rose looked up and saw him looking at her, concern written all over his face. After a few moments it became obvious he was going to wait her out so she gave up. To a point. “Okay, it’s because they just reminded me of… well, you know. Eating chips after the end of the Earth. And, you know. Everything. Sometimes it was tough to even smell them.”

He nodded. He did know. The sense of smell in both humans and Time Lords was closely associated with memory, especially memories of strong emotions. How many times had they gone out for chips after that first time? Hundreds over the course of the years they had traveled together. It had become almost a ritual with them, to go out for chips after particularly difficult adventures. The first time he had smelled them after he had lost her had been… difficult. For a while, he even tried to plan his TARDIS landings around there not being a chip shop in the area. Later, he did the exact opposite, allowing the scent to trigger memories he didn’t want to forget.

“Rose, I’m so sorry.” He reached for her hand, and for the first time he could remember she pulled it out of reach.

“No, I’m sorry. ‘S not your fault.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a spare napkin. Then she shoved her plate of chips away from her.

The Doctor took a deep breath. So far they had spent a lot of time joking around, pretending nothing was wrong, nothing was different, but he knew they needed to talk. He just didn’t know how to bring any of it up. Whenever there had been any unresolved issues between them in the past, it had always been Rose who had forced the issue, Rose who had made him open up. Now that she was the one who seemed to be avoiding the discussions he knew they needed to have, he didn’t know quite how to handle it. Maybe dive in with both feet and just get it over with.

“Rose,” he said, tugging on his right ear, “maybe we need to talk. You know. About what happened on the beach. And stuff. You think?” 

“Yeah,” she said, not meeting his eyes. He could see her emotionally shut down. She paused for a moment. “Maybe later, alright? Plenty of time for that. I’m just not ready right now, okay?” She crossed her arms, hugging herself. He wished he knew what she was thinking.

After a moment, she looked up at him, smiling brightly. “So, where to next?”

He was a bit taken aback by the swift mood reversal. “Ahhh, well, I’d really like to get something for Tony. Does he have a football?”

“I dunno. Probably. You know, there is this great toy shop just around the corner from here. Why don’t we stop there?”

 

“What about this, Rose?” The Doctor held up a toy spaceship. “It’s almost an exact replica of the one the Slitheen crashed into Big Ben.” He pressed a button on the back and the toy emitted an eardrum piercing siren.

The other customers in the aisle quickly covered their ears with their hands and shot them both dirty looks. And not for the first time. Rose lunged for the toy and quickly flicked a switch on the bottom. Despite silencing the toy, her ears were still ringing.

“No noisy toys, remember? Mum would slap you back into the other universe.”

“But Rose, those are the ones that are the most fun!” he whined.

Rose watched as the Doctor got distracted yet again by another loud, mobile, remote controlled, battery-operated monstrosity of a toy. She suddenly had a vision of alien marketplaces and the Doctor, her Doctor, getting sidetracked by some shiny piece of equipment for the TARDIS. The man in front of her was so much like him. She reminded herself this wasn’t _him; he_ was in the other universe. 

She plastered yet another false smile on her face and took him by the arm. She led him away from the electronic toys, much to the relief of the other customers. “Dad just got him that zeppelin. Why don’t we look for something else, yeah?”

They walked through the shop arm in arm, looking at the merchandise and dodging small children. Periodically, the Doctor would get distracted by something, but invariably Rose would remember that Tony owned it or something similar.

While making their way toward board games, they passed a display of toy musical instruments.

“Nothing noisy, remember?” Rose said, hoping to head off a disaster before it happened.

“Oh, but Rose, this would be great,” the Doctor said, picking up a recorder. “I used to have one just like this.” He lifted the instrument to his lips and began to play a completely unrecognizable and unmusical tune off-key.

Rose winced. The surrounding customers began to back away from him.

“Uh, no,” she said, taking the instrument away from him. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t understand it,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “I used to be quite good.”

“When was that?” she asked.

“Oh, not quite sure, really. Second body. Let’s see…” He appeared to be doing some calculations in his head. “Oooo, must be like six or seven hundred years ago. Maybe more. Well, I say maybe, actually it’s more than likely. More like probably. Not really sure anymore.” He grimaced. “Anyway… What about a book?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject. “Does he like books?”

“He loves ‘em, but he can’t really read yet. One of us reads to him every night. You should read to him sometime. He’d love it.” She smiled at him. “But y’know, his absolute favorite stories aren’t in a book, though. His favorite stories are the adventures of Sir Doctor and Dame Rose in the TARDIS.”

“Really?” He looked pleased, and then suddenly grew suspicious. “You’re not just winding me up, right? This isn’t like when your mum told me that they had named Tony ‘Doctor’?”

“No,” she laughed. “His favorite stories really are about the Doctor and the TARDIS. Admittedly, highly censored, child-friendly versions. And no Daleks or Cybermen. They’re just a little too real. Especially here.”

“Hmm,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “When’s his birthday again?”

“In a couple of months.”

“I have an idea, but we’re not going to be able to get it here, and it’s going to take some time,” he said mysteriously.

“What is it?”

“Oh that, my dear Rose Tyler, is a secret.”

“Well, I have an idea,” said Rose, leading him from the store.

“What is it?” he asked.

“That’s my secret,” she smiled at him. “You’ll see.”

The Doctor followed Rose down the street to a small shop named Cassilda’s. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“You’ll see…” she said mysteriously as she pushed open the door.

The Doctor was bombarded dozens of competing aromas, all sugar based and all delicious smelling. “A sweet shop?” he asked. He inhaled deeply, trying to figure out how many different sweets he could identify. He had gotten to one hundred and seventy-six before she spoke.

“Oh, no, not just a sweet shop,” she corrected with a grin. “ _The_ sweet shop. This shop is the best one in London. It has everything, including Tony’s favorite, gummy turtles.”

“Gummy turtles, not bears?”

Rose shrugged. “Here, they’re turtles. I thought we could get him some of these instead of a toy. They’re juice based, so Mum doesn’t care as long as he doesn’t have too many.”

As Rose went to the counter with her order, the Doctor wandered the shop to see what else was available. Eventually, he spotted something in particular and his eyes lit up.

“Oh, Rose, look here. Jelly Babies! I used to love Jelly Babies. It was a minor obsession of my fourth self. Used to carry around a bag of them all the time.”

“Why don’t we get some then?” Rose turned to the young man behind the counter who was waiting on her. “We’ll also take a pound of the chocolates, a pound of the Jelly Babies, and a pound of that,” she said, pointing to a large jar tucked in the corner of a glass display case.

After her order was bagged up and paid for, Rose handed the Jelly Babies to the Doctor. “Here you go. Just be careful. Don’t try the green ones.”

But it was too late. He had already popped one in his mouth. A look of horror crossed his face, immediately followed by a look of disgust. 

Rose quickly grabbed a napkin from a dispenser on the counter and handed it to him. She took the bag of Jelly Babies back and added it to her others. 

“Sorry,” she said, trying desperately not to laugh. The expression on his face had been priceless. “You were too quick for me.”

The Doctor quickly spat the offending sweet into the napkin and threw it into a nearby bin as they walked out of the store and onto the sidewalk. 

“Ewww, yuck,” he said, pulling a face. “Pear, Rose? What kind of universe has pear Jelly Babies?”

“Don’t worry, the rest are normal flavors,” she tried to reassure him.

“Yes, but they touched the green one so now they’re probably all, I don’t know, infected or something.” He made another face. “Now my whole mouth tastes like pear.” He shuddered. “Yuck.”

“Well, I know how to fix that,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Doctor, do you trust me?”

His eyes widened and he gulped. “Why, what do you have in mind?” He wondered if Rose had noticed his voice had gone up half an octave.

“Do. You. Trust. Me.” Now she raised both her eyebrows at him.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

“Then open your mouth and close your eyes and I’ll give you a big surprise,” she said mischievously.

He looked at her suspiciously, and then opened his mouth slightly. He closed his eyes most of the way.

Rose could see him looking at her through his long dark lashes. “Nuh, uh, uh. No peeking,” she said.

He tightly shut his eyes. He heard a rustle of a paper bag and then felt something pop into his mouth. His mouth closed automatically. His eyes flew open as he began to chew.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he moaned in pleasure. “Oh, now that is good. That is really, really good. What is it?”

“It’s a kind of banana caramel they have here. I thought you’d like it. The first time I had it I thought the Doc…” She stopped talking abruptly, all mirth gone as if it had never been there. She looked away from him. “Well, anyway, I really thought you’d like it.”

Her sudden mood change at the almost mention of his other self was almost dizzying. His heart fell. But then he had an idea. He took a deep breath. “I did. Thank you very much,” he said formally, bowing his head slightly. “I believe you saved my life.”

“What?” She was confused. 

“Pear Jelly Babies? I thought the taste was gonna kill me,” he answered, shuddering. “I thought, 'That’s it. It’s all over, right here. Nine hundred years of traveling in time and space, lifetimes spent fighting Daleks and Cybermen and whatnot, and I’m done in by a Jelly Baby.' It was worse than your mum’s shepherd’s pie. And that, that is saying something.” 

Her mouth twitched.

“Was that a smile?” he smirked.

“No,” Rose said firmly, trying to hide a grin. She took his arm and headed back to the car park.

“I think it was,” he said teasingly.

“No,” she said again, trying to stifle a giggle this time.

“Oh yes, it was. You smiled, Rose Tyler…”


	6. Chapter Five

The Doctor and Rose returned to the mansion late that afternoon both weighed down with some of the results of their shopping trip to find that most of their other purchases had already been delivered. They carried the bags up to the second floor and dumped most of them on the Doctor’s bed where the other packages had already been placed. Rose carried some of the bags through the shared bathroom to her own room and closed the connecting door.

The Doctor sank down into a chair that had been placed against the wall near the door and stared at the pile on the bed. He was still sitting there when Rose returned.

She had changed from her blouse and miniskirt back into the pair of jeans and top she had been wearing that morning. She was about to ask him if he needed help unpacking when she saw the expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“There’s just so much stuff!” The Doctor said, bewildered. He ran his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end.

“If you think this is bad, you should see my mum and her friend Vera with all their stuff after one of their shopping trips. It would fill up the living room in our old flat.” 

The Doctor shook his head. “I’ve never bought so much stuff in my life. And I’m certain I didn’t buy all this,” he continued. “Did we accidentally bring some bags home that belonged to someone else?”

Rose stifled a laugh. “I don’t think so, but why don’t we unpack and check. You start with that bag there,” she pointed to a bright blue bag that lay at the foot of the bed, “and I’ll start with this over here.” 

She watched him unpack two pairs of trousers and a number of shirts to go with them. It would take several days before the suits that they had ordered would be delivered. There were also pyjamas, a dressing gown, and slippers to replace Pete’s ill-fitting ones. While he worked, she unpacked two new pairs of trainers, one gray and one blue, a few ties in varying colors and patterns, some t-shirts, some socks, and package of pants. She had just picked the same type as he had been wearing when she and Pete had changed him into pyjamas when they had first arrived. If he wanted a different style, he was on his own as far as she was concerned. She had been tempted to add a leather jacket to the pile which was a match to the one her first Doctor wore, but she wasn’t sure he’d ever wear it and so had reluctantly returned it to the rack. She found another bag containing her own clothes and carried it straight to her room. He was still hanging the shirts in the wardrobe when she returned.

“Almost done?” she asked brightly. “Find anything that isn’t yours?”

“Not yet,” the Doctor said. “I found some things I didn’t pick out, but they appear to be mine anyway.” He gestured to the pants. “Thanks. I forgot about those. I’m not really used to thinking about buying everything. The TARDIS used to provide everything like that.”

“Don’t mention it,” Rose smiled. “I put a few other things in the bathroom as well.’

The Doctor shook his head. “It appears to be all my stuff. My stuff. I have stuff! Who knew I’d end up getting stuff? I’m going to have to get a place just to put my stuff.”

“Yep, a flat, and then a car, and a job…” Rose trailed off as she saw the Doctor unearth a small pink bag from under a shirt. “Wait!” she shouted as he reached into the bag and pulled out the contents.

A bright pink scrap of fabric dangled from his long fingers. He felt his face flush as he realized just exactly what he held in his hand. In less than a second, his mind flashed on a myriad of possible responses, _embarrassment, nonchalance, feigned ignorance,_ before settling on one. He held the article up and scrutinized it, trying to keep a straight face.

“This is definitely not mine. At least, I hope not.” He tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. “Don’t really think they’re my color.” 

Rose felt her face go hot and was sure she had turned the same color as the knickers he was holding. She reached for them and he intentionally held them up just out of her reach. “Shut up. Give me that!” she demanded, trying three times before being able to grab them out of his hand. “Shut up!” she said again, and they both burst out laughing. 

They were still laughing when they entered the living room a few minutes later. This room, like the rest of the house, was basically as the Doctor remembered, but with a few significant changes. A comfortable floral patterned sofa sat in the center of the room with a low table in front of it and two coordinating chairs opposite it. A large flat screened television hung on the wall nearby. A curio cabinet stood against one wall, filled with family photos. And there were a variety of toys scattered all over the floor. By and large it looked like a room a family actually lived in, rather than one designed for a model home. Jackie was sitting on the couch watching Tony as he zoomed the toy zeppelin around the room.

When he saw them, Tony greeted the Doctor and Rose by running up to them and almost tackling them with hugs. To her amusement, she noted that her brother may have been a bit more exuberant with the Doctor, who seemed to return the greeting with the same level of enthusiasm.

“The Doctor and I got something for you, Tony,” she told the little boy.

“What is it? What is it?” he demanded excitedly.

“Gummy turtles,” she responded. Tony squealed in delight. “But you can only have them after dinner and only if Mum says it’s okay.”

“How did the shopping trip go?” Jackie wanted to know.

“Fine. Great.” Rose answered, flopping herself down next to her mother as Tony returned to playing. “Glad it’s over with. I’m exhausted. The shops were packed, even more than usual. One weird thing happened, though. The power went out for a minute when we were in Erving’s.”

The Doctor sat in a chair opposite them. “It did?” he asked. “I don’t remember that. Where was I?”

Rose tried to remember. “Dunno. Last I had seen you you were headed for ties.”

“Oh, that’s right in the center of the store.” Jackie had the layout of the shop memorized. “Right under a bunch of skylights. Maybe it was too bright and that’s why you didn’t see it.”

At the sound of the front door opening and closing, they all turned their heads. The Doctor stood up as Pete Tyler entered the room. 

Tony turned and ran to his father. “Dad!” he shouted.

“How’s my big boy today!” he said, picking him up and hugging him before setting him back down.

The Doctor crossed the room and grabbed the other man’s hand, shaking it vigorously.

“Pete Tyler, wonderful to see you! Thank you so much for your hospitality!”

“Don’t mention it, Doctor,” Pete smiled. “I’m just glad to see you up and about. How are you doing?”

“Me, I’m fine,” he answered. “Was just a bit tired, that’s all.”

“Glad to here it.” Pete crossed the room to plant a kiss on Jackie’s cheek. “And how are my two favorite girls today?” He placed an identical kiss on Rose’s cheek.

“Exhausted,” Jackie answered. “It’s a good thing you’re home. Your son has been a handful all day.”

Pete turned back to the Doctor. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he said, jerking his head toward the doorway.

“Of course.” The Doctor followed him out of the room.

“Don’t you be too long.” Jackie called after them. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

 

Pete led the way into his study, the Doctor following with trepidation. For a moment he felt like an errant schoolboy being sent to the headmaster’s office. Pete Tyler’s study was an enormous room, easily the same size as the whole of the Tyler flat on the Powell Estate. The outside wall was covered with a series of floor to ceiling windows that revealed a panoramic view of the garden. Two of the walls were covered with books, and the remaining, which held the interior door, had a seating area and a small wet bar. In the center of the room was a large, antique desk.

“Please, have a seat. Can I offer you anything?” Pete walked to the bar.

“No. Thank you.” The Doctor remained standing while Pete poured himself a glass of sparkling water. To the Doctor’s surprise, Pete sat down not at his desk, but on a long leather couch placed against the wall. So, not too formal. The Doctor sat near him on a matching chair. 

“Are you sure you are okay? You seemed pretty sick for several days.”

“I’m fine. Really, I’m fine,” the Doctor reassured him. “I assume that Rose has told you about regeneration?”

“Both Rose and Jackie have mentioned it.”

“Well, my body’s creation was kind of like that,” said the Doctor, rubbing the back of his neck. “It needed to stabilize in its current form. When Time Lords are severely injured, especially to the point of regeneration, their bodies will often go into a coma to focus all their energy on healing.”

“But Jackie said you’re human.”

The Doctor scoffed. “Not exactly. I’ve definitely got some human DNA in me now, but I’m still mostly Time Lord. Probably. I think.”

Pete Tyler sat back and scrutinized the man sitting in front of him. Rose’s description of who and what he was was confusing to say the least, and when he had questioned Jackie, her answer was typically garbled.

“Who are you?” Pete finally asked.

The Doctor blinked.

“What? I’m the Doctor,” he said in surprise.

“Are you?” Pete asked. “Are you the same man who came here with Rose and Mickey when Lumic first built the Cybermen? And are you the same man I met in the other world when Rose got trapped here?”

The Doctor was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “That question is a bit more complicated than it seems on the surface.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Either you are or you aren’t. Yes or no.”

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck again. To Pete’s eyes, he looked very uncomfortable.

“Well, the short answer is yes,” he eventually answered. “I am the same man.” 

“Rose seems to think you aren’t,” Pete said. “And I couldn’t get anything coherent out of Jackie.”

The Doctor tried to stifle a laugh. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

“So, if you are the same man, how are you the same man, and why does Rose think you aren’t?”

“And that’s where it gets complicated,” said the Doctor. He stood up and began pacing across the room. “Pete, this may sound a little odd, well, I say a little odd, really it’ll sound quite a bit odd… Well, I say quite a bit, but really it’s more like completely unbelievable…”

“Is there a point to all of this?” Pete asked.

The Doctor turned to him. “Actually, yes. You see, I am the same person, but I’m not. I was the same person, but I was shot and began to regenerate. I tried to stop it by throwing the excess energy into a handy bioidentical receptacle, my hand right here.” He held up his right hand and wiggled his fingers.

“Rose told me that part, and the fact that you were created from that hand,” Pete said.

“Well, this body was, certainly,” the Doctor said. “My hand, plus the regeneration energy, and a tiny bit of my friend Donna’s DNA. But in the process of throwing the regeneration energy I, well, accidentally managed to split my consciousness between my old self and my new self. So before I was the same person, but now I’m really two different people. Sort of. But when you met me before, that was me.”

“Okay,” said Pete.

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up.

“Okay?” the Doctor asked incredulously. “That’s all you have to say? Okay? You believe me?”

“Yeah.” When the Doctor looked at him in astonishment Pete continued, his mouth twitching with suppressed amusement. “Doctor, I’m the Director of Torchwood. I’ve dealt with Cybermen and Daleks, aliens and parallel universes. I’ve even married the parallel version of my wife, and my daughter is actually the daughter of the parallel version of myself. Compared to some of the weird things I’ve seen, you managing to split yourself in two actually falls into the fairly normal category.”

The Doctor laughed and shook his head. “Pete Tyler, you are an extraordinary man,” he said in amazement.

“The real problem as I see it is Rose,” Pete said. “She understands that your regeneration went a bit wrong, she understands that there are two of you, but she doesn’t realize that you are really you.”

“I know,” said the Doctor, sinking back down on the chair. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “And I haven’t really been able to figure out how to convince her.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Pete suggested.

“No,” he said. “Thank you, but no. I really need to be the one to explain it to her. I actually tried talking to her on the TARDIS, but we were interrupted, my other self and I tried to explain it to her on the beach in Norway and she didn’t understand, and then I tried to talk to her earlier today and she shut down emotionally on me. I’m not sure she’s really ready to talk about it yet. Instead, we seem to be just tiptoeing around each other, talking a lot but not really saying anything. My other self really hurt her by how he handled things on the beach in Norway…” his voice trailed off. As soon as he had known how his other self was going to handle things, he’d been convinced it might go a bit pear-shaped. The question was, how was he going to fix it, especially if Rose didn’t want to talk to him about it.

“You know, Pete,” the Doctor continued, “I don’t know if she ever told you this, but Rose had a bit of a hard time believing I was me after my last regeneration. And she had witnessed it. She had watched it happen. I looked quite a bit different before that one and she had a hard time accepting it for a while. But this regeneration, with there being two of me…” His voice trailed off again.

“Rose is a smart woman. She’ll eventually figure it out.”

“No, Rose isn’t just smart; Rose is brilliant,” the Doctor corrected him, his admiration for her creeping into his voice. “I’ve known it ever since I met her.”

Pete smiled at the love in the Doctor’s voice for his step-daughter. 

“Well, since you’re you,” Pete said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “I need to discuss something with you.”

The Doctor tried to appear relaxed, but his entire body tensed up. He eyed Pete warily. 

Pete stared at him intently. “I want to talk to you about coming to work for Torchwood.”

The Doctor sighed, relieved. The tension flowed out of him. So not about Rose. He had been worried about a parental ‘what are your intentions toward my daughter’ talk. Of course, that was more likely to come from Jackie, he realized. Followed by a slap. All in all, a job offer from the director of Torchwood was much less dangerous. As was the job itself, probably. He leaned back in the chair. “Go on.”

“Torchwood lost a lot of good men and women in the war with the Cybermen. And three days ago, one of our top scientists went missing.”

“Rose didn’t tell me that,” the Doctor said, surprised.

“She doesn’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to tell her.” Pete placed the glass of water on an end table and leaned back. “Anyway, we could really use your help as a scientific advisor. I understand you had a bit of experience with that. Rose mentioned that at one point you were the scientific advisor for a group called UNIT?”

The Doctor took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Weell,” he said, drawing out the syllable. “Yes. No. Weell, sort of. Sometimes.”

Inwardly, he cursed the inadequacies of the English language. Gallifreyan had separate pronouns specifically for talking about previous regenerations, whether one’s own or someone else’s. On the other hand, even Gallifreyan didn’t have pronouns for discussing a meta-crisis.

At Pete’s puzzled glance he continued, “It all depends on your definition of me. It was me, but it wasn’t exactly me. It was him. Or both of us together, actually. To be technical, it wasn’t even us; it was the third version of us. Well, and the fourth version of us occasionally, or sometimes one of the others of us…And we did help sort that business with the Sontarans a little while back… But really it was primarily my third self. And my fourth. If that makes things clear.”

“As mud.” Pete responded, shaking his head. Attempting to follow the Doctor’s train of thought was dizzying. “Nevertheless, you’re here and we want _you_.” Slight emphasis on the last word. “Will you do it?”

The Doctor grimaced, slowly sucking air in through clenched teeth. “I’ve got to warn you, Pete, I haven’t really had a good experience with Torchwood in the past, and I’m not particularly good with command structures.”

“I know.” Pete answered. “But we aren’t the same as the Torchwood you are familiar with, and I think we can work around your command issues.”

“Another thing,” the Doctor said, first pulling on an ear then rubbing his chin. “Scientific advisor could mean anything. Back at UNIT, all they seemed to want me to do is make them weapons and blow things up. I didn’t want to do it then, and I won’t do it now.”

“Understood.”

“What did Rose say when you asked her about it?”

“I haven’t spoken to Rose about this.”

“Talk to her. If _she_ thinks it is a good idea, and you can work around my restrictions, then I’ll consider it.” Slight emphasis on the word she. 

Pete Tyler looked like he was about to argue with him. Time for a change of subject, the Doctor thought. “You heard Rose took me on a shopping trip today. I understand you paid for it. I’d like to pay you back. It may take me some time though…”

“Consider it a gift. After all you’ve done for my family, for this planet…” Pete held up a hand as the Doctor started to argue. “Of course, if you join Torchwood, you could consider it part of your signing bonus.” Pete smiled slowly.

The Doctor could tell how Pete Tyler had become not only the current director of Torchwood, but also the multimillionaire founder of the Vitex Corporation. The man would not take no for an answer. “You really need to talk to Rose,” he insisted.

“Okay, you win. I will,” Pete said, laughing. “I don’t see how it will make any difference, but I will.”

“Good. Thank you,” said the Doctor, relieved. Pete Tyler was a very powerful man in this world, as well as being Rose’s step-father, and it wouldn’t be good to antagonize him, especially since he was stuck on this planet for the foreseeable future. Not to mention the fact he was currently living under the man’s roof. 

“Next topic,” said Pete. He got up to get a pad of paper and a pen, and then sat back down. “We need to go about creating an identity for you. At this minute on this planet you don’t exist. When Jackie and Rose got here, Jackie was able to just assume my first wife’s identity, but we had to go about creating one for Rose, and we’ll need to do the same for you. However, for us to begin that process, you’ll need a name, and ‘the Doctor’ is just not going to cut it legally. Do you have a preference?”

“Weell,” the Doctor said slowly, “I’ve gone by a lot of names over the years, but the one I’ve used the most by far is John Smith. I’ve used it almost as long as I’ve used the Doctor.”

Pete nodded. “That’s what Rose said. The only problem is that John Smith sounds like an alias. It’s not required, but it would be very helpful to have a middle name to go with it, to add credibility. Any ideas?”

The Doctor leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. _What to choose, what to choose, what to choose,_ he thought. Whatever he chose, he’d be stuck with for the rest of his life. He wasn’t used to making decisions with such a long term impact, at least not on himself. He sat up abruptly, struck with inspiration.

“Noble,” he said decisively. “After a very dear friend.”

“Excellent. John Noble Smith it is. We can get started on that right away. We’ll also need the names of your parents.” 

“Pete, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to pronounce the names of my parents, let alone spell them.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “Not your real parents, necessarily. I just need something to put on a birth certificate. And it should be something that comes to you instinctively, automatically, that you don’t have to think about, so that if you are ever questioned…”

The Doctor’s brow furrowed as he thought. This was getting complicated. Then he grinned as an idea came to him. They would have both hated it. She would really have hated it in particular. He could imagine her tirade if she had ever been able to find out about it, but it seemed fairly suiting.

“Father’s name: John Smith,” he said, thinking of his other self. “And mother’s name: Donna Noble.”

“Excellent,” Pete said, writing it down. “Now where are you from again?”

“Gallifrey,” the Doctor said automatically, and then caught himself. “So that’s what you meant about picking something that comes automatically. Wait, you can’t write that down!” he protested as Pete scribbled it on the page.

“Why not?” the other man said with a smirk. “That’s somewhere in Ireland, isn’t it?”

The Doctor laughed as he stood up. “Was that all?”

“Actually, no.” Pete gestured to the chair the Doctor had just risen from. “Please, Doctor, sit down.”

The Doctor sat back down, wary again. 

“You know, Doctor, Rose told me that the first time you two came to this planet you told her not to see me, that I wasn’t her father. I was a Pete, not her Pete. And you were right.”

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows, wondering where Pete was heading with this.

“But the second time I met you, you tried to fix me up with Jackie. I was totally opposed to it. But then I met Jackie. No, she wasn’t my Jackie, but in every way that counts she is. She has the same smile, the same laugh. She has the same sense of humor and the same quick temper. And now Jackie and I are together and happy and Rose is my daughter. Perhaps just a step-daughter technically, but she is my daughter now and I love her as if she were my own flesh and blood. And Jacks and I have Tony. And I want to thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have my family.”

The Doctor stared at him in amazement.

“Now I know Rose never had any intention of staying here, and I know you didn’t ask for this either, but I just wanted to say Jacks and I are extremely grateful that Rose is still here and that you are with her.”

“Thank you, Pete.” The Doctor was more than a bit taken aback at the turn of the conversation. “But as far as being _with_ Rose… Rose doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be with my other self.” The Doctor stared off into space. For a second, he was back on the beach, seeing the look of shock on Rose’s face as she realized his other self had left with Donna as she had been kissing him. He heard her saying, _“But he’s not you.”_ And he remembered her silent tears on the zeppelin.

“She loves all those things about him that are a part of you. And you love her. I can see it written all over you. Don’t give up on her. She needs you.” Pete leaned forward and stared into the Doctor’s eyes. He stood and smiled. “Maybe it’s time to rejoin Jackie and Rose.”

The Doctor stood as well, relieved that the discussion was now over. “Pete, before we go back, I do need to ask you a favor…”


	7. Chapter Six

Kate Lee walked through the empty Griffith St. electrical distribution substation. As usual she had pulled the worst work shift. She typically was stationed at the Evergreen power station, but she hadn’t been posted there in months. Evergreen staffed both the main power station and the substation. Most substations were completely automated, but someone in the government somewhere had decided that its location in one of the busiest sections of London warranted an actual staff. Normally, technicians were rotated in and out of Griffith St. because working at the substation was so monotonous no one wanted to do it permanently. 

Ever since Kate had turned down her supervisor’s dinner invitation, however, he had begun scheduling her the worst work hours imaginable. Kevin Olsen, her boss, was a great bear of a man and had always made her uncomfortable. His clothes were dirty, his longish blonde hair was almost always in need of a wash, and he sometimes smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. And he hadn’t taken kindly to her date refusals. In the past several months he had scheduled her for night shifts, weekend shifts, and split shifts. The last three weeks he had taken to scheduling her for Friday and Saturday nights. If he couldn’t take her out, he was going to make bloody well sure she couldn’t date anyone else, either. And as the substation was automated, there was nothing to do for eight hours but stare at the computer displays. A complete waste of time. But, as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t afford to quit. Even working here was better than moving back into her parent’s flat.

“Arrrrgg!” she screamed. “I hate you, Kevin!”

Kate walked through the corridors of the building, checking to make sure everything was running properly. The boredom was driving her crazy, and she almost wished for a problem to happen just to give her something to do. Although she was an electrical technician, she felt more like a security guard. Or perhaps a school prefect.

A loud bang like a door being slammed behind her made her jump. Heart racing, she turned to see what caused the sound. The long hallway was empty. 

“Kevin, is that you?” she called. She hoped it wasn’t. If he had heard her yell, she’d be fired for sure, and then she’d have to move back in with her parents, and bad work schedules were nothing compared to her Mum’s constant nagging and her Dad’s temper.

She called out the names of her coworkers at the substation. “Kevin? Bruce? Monica? Is anyone there?” No answer. The only sound she heard was the normal background hum of the lights. 

Without warning, the hall lights above her flickered, accompanied by a soft crackling noise. That wasn’t good. Senses on high alert, she tiptoed silently back to the control room. 

It was empty. Kate slowly let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. She turned to check the monitors. Their screens were all blank.

“What?” she gasped in shock. There were redundancies on top of redundancies to prevent this sort of thing happening. She ran to the nearest terminal and began to rapidly type.

The lights above her began to flicker, and she heard the crackling noise again, louder this time. Suddenly a blue light surrounded her. When it faded, she had vanished.

 

“Well, it’s about time you two were back,” Jackie said, rising from the sofa as the Doctor and Pete returned to the room. “Dinner’s getting cold. Other people need to eat as well, you know. I’ve already fed Tony and put him to bed.”

Pete’s mobile buzzed and he turned to take the call. “Sorry,” he said to Jackie when he disconnected. “That was a friend of mine. He wants to meet the Doctor, but he can’t schedule it for any time other than tonight. You understand.” Pete winked at his wife. Rose, looking at the Doctor searchingly, didn’t notice.

Jackie was sure she didn’t understand but she was used to the strange hours Pete put in as Torchwood’s Director. “Oh, right,” she said. “Well, don’t be too late, then. I’ll see you when you get back.” Pete leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Do you want me to come with?” Rose questioned the Doctor.

But Pete answered. “No, no. You keep your mum company. The Doctor is fine with me.”

Rose was still staring at the Doctor, who returned her gaze. “You don’t need to wait up. I’ll be fine,” he told her. He turned and followed Pete out the door. Rose watched as they left.

“Come on, Rose,” Jackie said, putting her arm around Rose and leading her to the kitchen. “I’ll make a fresh pot of tea. It might be a long night.”

“You heard him. He told me not to wait up.”

“Yeah, I heard him,” Jackie responded. “But I know you. You’d wait up even if he was gone three days.”

Rose laughed ruefully. “Yeah,” she nodded.

 

The Torchwood Institute on Pete’s world was a quasi-governmental agency formed to counter alien threats and attacks. Unlike on Rose Tyler’s home world, Torchwood in this universe had become a well-known organization and, after the initial defeat of the Cybermen, it had been reorganized in full view of the public under the leadership of Pete Tyler. According to public record, Torchwood had its headquarters in a large office building in downtown London, with branches in Cardiff, Wales, and Glasgow, Scotland.

The main offices of Torchwood, however, were hidden in plain sight. 

On the outskirts of London lay the busy factory for Burpee’s Baby Formula. A new company, it had quickly risen to the number one brand of baby formula in England in just a few short years and had taken over an old factory that had formerly produced kitchen taps. Adverts for Burpee’s formula were everywhere. They ran constantly on television and the radio. They had ads in magazines, in newspapers, and on interactive billboards. When you touched one, an attractive young mother holding a baby in her arms would say the company slogan, “Feed your baby the Burpee way.”

The Burpee’s Baby Formula factory didn’t really make baby formula, though. The formula was produced by a company in Turkey, under the Burpee’s Baby Formula label. The Turkish company was paid extremely well from a numbered account in the Cayman Islands to keep that a secret. And if anyone ever noticed the factory’s grounds had higher security than usual, that the fences were taller than was customary and topped with razor wire, that security cameras blanketed the entire facility as well as the surrounding area, that factory workers were never seen entering or leaving, and that the entrance guards were armed, no one ever mentioned it. 

In fact, the company didn’t really exist, and the supposed factory was actually the true headquarters of the Torchwood Institute.

Inside the aging factory was a state-of-the-art, ultra-modern research facility. In addition to its official mission, Torchwood’s charter included the development of new technologies and arms to protect Britain from any and all threats. Sometimes that involved the reverse engineering of alien technology. This led to the development of such items as the dimensional transporter and the particle gun. At other times Torchwood scientists conducted original research into such diverse areas as DNA analysis, astrophysics, and alternative energies.

 

Pete Tyler led the way through the empty hallways of the Torchwood complex. Torchwood wasn’t really empty. Places like that never were. But the weekend staff was down to a skeleton crew in an attempt to recover some sense of normality, Pete had informed the Doctor when they had passed security and had driven into the car park.

The Doctor eyed him suspiciously “Why are we here?” the Doctor asked. “I thought you said you’d talk to Rose about me working here.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Pete said quickly. “Well, not entirely. You’ll see.”

Each time they passed through security doors, Pete scanned the back of the ID he wore around his neck. The Doctor wore a similar one, his simply stating “Visitor” on the front.

“All our IDs have computer chips embedded in the backs of them,” Pete told him. “They will unlock any doors according to an employee’s security clearance, but they will also track people inside the building. We can tell where everyone is at all times, provided they wear their IDs.”

“And what if you don’t wear your ID?” the Doctor asked.

“You won’t get very far. All doors are electronically locked and you can’t get through them without your ID.”

Although the Doctor understood the reason for high security in a place like Torchwood, the idea of constantly being tracked wasn’t something he was comfortable with, and he mentioned that to Pete.

“I wasn’t either at first, but you get used to it,” Pete shrugged.

The Doctor followed Pete into a small office. A tall, gray-haired man in his mid-fifties wearing a white lab coat rose from behind the desk as they entered. He had a stethoscope looped around his neck in addition to an ID hanging on a cord. He smiled and held out his hand to Pete.

“Frank, thanks so much for coming in on such short notice.” Pete grabbed Frank’s hand and shook it vigorously. “I’d like you to meet someone. Frank, this is Doctor John Smith. Doctor, I’d like you to meet Dr. Frank Collins.”

“Pleasure to meet you, John,” Collins said with a smile. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“Delighted, Frank,” said the Doctor, shaking Frank’s proffered hand. “I wish I could say the same.” He looked at Pete questioningly. 

“Pete tells me you are having some problems with your vision.”

“Oh. Yes,” the Doctor said, thinking about the favor he had asked Pete for. Boy, when Pete Tyler wanted to get something done, it got done immediately. “But it’s nothing serious. Primarily having trouble with small type.”

“Still, important to get checked out. Why don’t you follow me into the examining room.”

Collins led the way through a small door in the wall to an adjoining office. The Doctor sat down in a chair next to a small counter, ignoring the table in the center of the room. Collins removed a small trolley from a closet. A portable vision screener sat on it. He pushed the trolley in front of the Doctor.

“Look through here. Read the script until it becomes blurry.” The Doctor obeyed. “Now tell me when it improves.” Collins made some small adjustments to the machine and the Doctor indicated when it was clear. “Excellent. You know,” Collins said, removing the trolley and wheeling it back to the closet, “your vision is not bad, but you do need some assistance with close work. Most of us need a little help as we age, usually by early 40s, but sometimes earlier. You’re what, mid-30s?”

The Doctor and Pete exchanged glances. “Perhaps a bit older,” the Doctor admitted. Quite a bit older, he thought. Or a _whole lot_ younger, thinking ruefully of his body’s creation less than a week earlier.

“Would you mind if I examined your right hand?” Frank asked.

“Why?” he said suspiciously.

“Well, it felt a little warm when we shook, and you’ve been rubbing it off and on since you’ve been here.” Collins took the Doctor’s hand in his, prodding the hand with his thumb. He then compared the Doctor’s right hand with his left. “Interesting,” he said. “Your right hand is much warmer to the touch than your left. And the muscles in your right hand are a little larger than your left. That in and of itself is not unusual in one’s dominant hand, but they almost seem to be attached differently than is normal. Has it been injured?”

“Yes,” replied the Doctor, remembering it being cut off in a duel on a Sycorax spacecraft. Around a different Earth. In another Universe. “But not recently.”

Frank Collins looked at him appraisingly, and then exchanged glances with Pete. The Doctor noticed Pete giving Collins a slight nod.

“Would you mind if I take your blood pressure and listen to your heart?” Collins asked. “I would like to check something.”

The Doctor exhaled loudly. “I’m perfectly all right. I don’t need an examination.”

“Still…”

The Doctor ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. He looked from Frank to Pete and then back to Frank. Everyone seemed to be worried about his health. First Rose, then Jackie, and now Pete. Just because he had been unconscious for three days…

“Oh, alright,” he said finally, shooting a dirty look at Pete. “If we must, let’s just get it over with.” He started to pull off his jacket.

“Do you want me to leave?” Pete asked.

“If you leave, how will you report back to Rose?” the Doctor shot back, glaring at Pete while pulling off his shirt.

After taking his blood pressure, Collins listened first to the Doctor’s heart and then his lungs with the stethoscope. “Now breathe deeply, and let the air out slowly,” he said. 

Afterwards, his eyes narrowed as he watched the Doctor dress. “Blood pressure’s a bit low, heart rate’s a bit higher than I’d expect. And based on what I heard, you must have a phenomenal lung capacity. I don’t see anything that worries me. If you have any health problems, please come back and see me. And if your hand is still bothering you, I can give you something for it.”

The Doctor looked down with a start. He had been rubbing his right hand again without realizing it.

“I’ll have the lab make a new pair of glasses for you and send them around to Pete’s as soon as they are done.” Collins said, making a note on his computer. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Actually, yes there is,” the Doctor answered, pulling his spare glasses from his jacket pocket. “Is there any way the new lenses could be put into these frames?”

“Probably,” Collins answered, taking the glasses from him and examining the frames. “I don’t see why not.”

“Thanks, Frank.” Pete said. “Thanks for everything.” Collins shook the Doctor’s and Pete’s hands in turn as they left the office.

Once they were down the hall, out of earshot, Pete turned to the Doctor. “I thought you didn’t have a pair of glasses.”

“Oh, no. Always carry a spare pair in my pocket,” he grinned. Now that the exam was over, he was over his momentary irritation with Rose’s step-father. “Pete, can I tell you a little secret? Plain glass. Only used them to look clever.” The Doctor pulled a face and shuddered. “Now I actually need them to see.”


	8. Chapter Seven

“Rose, talk to me,” said Jackie. “You haven’t really talked to me since we’ve been back.” She had poured each of them a cup of tea and had led the way back into the living room. She sat down on the couch and gestured for Rose to sit next to her.

It was true, Rose thought. She had been avoiding talking to her mum since they had been back. Somehow talking about everything would have made it seem more real somehow. Instead, she had hidden herself in the Doctor’s room and avoided seeing everyone. She just hadn’t been prepared for how everything had turned out. But how could she have been prepared for being stranded on the beach again? Of all the possible scenarios for what would have happened after finding the Doctor again, that one truly had never occurred to her.

Rose sat down, holding her favorite mug in both hands. It was covered in large pink roses. She usually didn’t do roses, it was just a little bit too precious considering her name, but Tony had given it to her as a Christmas present and had picked it out for her by himself, so she loved it. 

“How did today go with the Doctor?” Jackie asked.

“Fine,” she responded. “He seems to be handling things really well, but I’m not sure if I’d know if he wasn’t. The real Doctor was always really good at covering up what he was feeling, so I guess this one probably is as well.”

“And how are you handling everything, sweetheart?”

“Oh, Mum,” she said, her voice breaking slightly, “It’s just so hard, y’know? He’s so much like him, but he’s not him. I look at him and I talk to him, and it’s just like he’s there with me, like the old days when we were traveling, and then it hits me. This is not him. _He_ left me. He said I could stay with him forever, and then he left me.”

Despite Rose’s best efforts to stop them, tears started to fall. Jackie wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. Rose put her mug on the table in front of her and grabbed a tissue from a box next to it. She wiped her eyes and her nose and then sat back. She leaned into her mother, resting her head on Jackie’s shoulder. After a moment, she sat forward again, scrubbing her face with her hands. 

“I am not doing this anymore,” she said vehemently. “I am sick to death of crying and I’m not going to do it anymore. When we first started looking for him, I knew going in that things may have changed, that it might not work out. And it didn’t. I just was stupid to get my hopes up.”

Jackie rubbed her daughter’s back. “So what are you gonna do?”

Rose shook her head and sighed. “I dunno.”

“And what are you gonna do about himself, this one we have here in this universe?”

Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. “Now that, I really don’t know.”

“Well, you sure seemed to know on that beach in Norway,” Jackie said pointedly.

Rose sighed loudly and leaned forward, resting her head in her hands. Her long, blonde hair fell forward, covering her face from view. “That was a mistake. An accident.”

“Sure didn’t look like no accident to me. How do you _accidentally_ snog someone’s face off?”

“Oh, God,” Rose groaned.

 

Pete Tyler led the Doctor through the halls of Torchwood, pointing out various offices and laboratories. Despite the late hour, and it being the weekend, there were a fair number of employees still working. The Doctor was impressed that Torchwood’s Director not only greeted each one they encountered, but introduced him to each one by name.

Pete led the way into a huge storage bay, filled with a variety of alien technology. Several scientists were still working, analyzing and cataloging bits of equipment. Among other things, the Doctor recognized a damaged solar particle scoop, a piece of an old Lexion laser cannon, and what looked like possibly part of a Socarthy shuttlecraft. 

“Lisa, would you come here please,” Pete called. A tall, breathtakingly beautiful black woman in her late twenties walked over to them. She was carefully carrying something that looked a bit like a gun of some type in her hands. 

“Doctor, this is Doctor Lisa Hallett. She’s one of Richard Bradford’s assistants. He’s the scientist who is missing. Lisa, this is Doctor John Smith. I’m just showing him around the place a bit tonight.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said the Doctor, grinning. She reminded him a little of Martha, he thought, although he realized she probably had at least eight inches on her. Martha had been tiny.

“You as well,” Lisa said with a smile. “I’d shake your hand, but mine are a bit full at the moment.”

“Yes, what is that?” asked Pete.

“We’re not quite sure,” she said, looking down at it. “It appears to be a type of weapon, but we haven’t figured out how it works yet.”

The Doctor cleared his throat and shook his head slightly.

Pete glanced at him. “Doctor, do you know what it is?”

“Weell,” he said, pulling on his ear, “it’s not a weapon.”

Lisa Hallett seemed to take offense at his comment. “No?” she asked, almost rudely. “We’ve been working on this for three weeks. If it’s not a weapon, what do you think it is?”

Okay, maybe not so much like Martha. The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want to embarrass the young woman. “It’s … a hair dryer.”

“You’re kidding.” Pete Tyler bit his lip to keep from laughing. “A hair dryer, huh?” He motioned for the scientist to return to work. She did so with a disbelieving scowl. When she was out of earshot he finally gave up. “You see, now this is why we need you,” he laughed. “A hair dryer.”

At first, the Doctor thought the tour was just part of Director Tyler’s hard sell of a possible new Torchwood recruit, but he soon came to realize it was anything but. Pete Tyler, former struggling entrepreneur, was truly proud of his work as Director of Torchwood and longed to show it off to someone who could appreciate it for what it was. The Doctor was impressed and told him so.

“Thank you,” said Pete, genuinely pleased. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“Now this facility,” said the Doctor, “it’s new, isn’t it? What happened to Canary Wharf?”

“Oh, it’s still there,” said Pete, “but downtown London is way too high profile for the work we do, so about four years ago we began to look for a new facility. This place is good because no one thinks twice about lorries driving in and out of a factory at all hours of the day or night. It’s centrally located, close to London, close to major roadways, and has plenty of room for expansion if necessary. Technically, it is Torchwood Four, but we’ve moved most divisions to this location, and the Canary Wharf offices only hold accounting and payroll at this point. I’d like to shut down Torchwood One eventually and move everything here, but it’s not my decision.”

“So does Rose work here?”

“She has for the last couple of years, while we were all working on the dimension cannon. Here, let me show you.”

Pete led the way to a darkened, deserted section of the building. They passed through two sets of doors equipped with fingerprint and retinal scanners. Pete explained that the section was considered too sensitive to rely on the IDs that unlocked the doors in most parts of the building.

The lights automatically turned on as they entered the lab. Floor to ceiling computer banks lined one wall. Another wall held computer interfaces and monitors. A glass enclosed booth was in one corner. The Doctor walked over and peered into it, examining the high-tech equipment within. 

“Oooo, this is nasty,” he said, making a face. “Worse than a Vortex Manipulator. Not only could you damage the universe integrity, but this could do some very, very bad things to your insides. Using this would be like putting yourself inside a particle accelerator.” He turned back to Pete. “How many people traveled in this?” 

“Six,” was the answer. “Mickey Smith, Jake Simmonds, two people you don’t know named Roger Conrad and Jeremy Britt, Rose, of course. Rose was the primary one using it. And Jackie,” Pete added. “Mickey and Jacks were using the dimensional transporters, but they were being powered through the dimension cannon.” 

“They’ll all need to have medical exams, if they haven’t already. Full work ups, as well as testing for chromosomal damage.”

“Roger died on a mission early on in the project, Jake is on assignment in America for the next few weeks, and of course Mickey isn’t here anymore, but I’ll make sure the rest get examined.” Pete shook his head. “Jacks wasn’t supposed to be a part of this. Somehow she managed to talk Mickey into it. If he wasn’t in the other universe, I’d fire his sorry arse.”

“Don’t blame him too much.” The Doctor was the voice of experience. “Hard to stop a Tyler woman when she has her mind made up.”

“Tell me about it.” Pete rolled his eyes.

“So who did the scientific research behind this?” the Doctor asked.

Pete crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “We had a team of researchers working on adapting this from a bit of alien technology that came through the Rift in Cardiff. But most of the final work was done by Rose.”

The Doctor did a double take. “Rose?” He couldn’t believe it. “This is some very, very advanced work. How could Rose…”

“That’s really Rose’s story, not mine. I’m going to let her explain that to you.”

“And you started working on this because the stars started going out?”

Pete nodded. “We knew this was way over our heads and needed to find an expert, and the only one we knew of was in a different universe,” he said pointedly. “And it worked. Whatever it was you did. Most of the stars are back.”

The Doctor whirled around so fast Pete didn’t even see him move. “What do you mean ‘most’?”

“I mean most. As in ‘not all’.”

The Doctor stood motionless for a moment, lost in thought. 

Pete cocked his head toward the door and the Doctor followed him out. Pete made sure the doors were secure before heading back down the hall toward the entrance. As they were just about to leave the building, the overhead lights began to flicker and they both heard a crackling sound.

The Doctor looked up. “Have you been having trouble paying your electric bill, Pete?”

 

“I am just so angry, Mum.”

Rose was pacing the living room, periodically side stepping to avoid the occasional cast off toy. Jackie began to pick them up and put them in a basket in the corner of the room, if only to prevent Rose accidentally tripping over them.

“People aren’t interchangeable. They aren’t spare parts, where you can take one out and just substitute something similar. And to suggest leaving me here with him was some sort of … I dunno, gift or something. Donna may have been the one who said it, but that was him. That was just…beyond insulting.” She pulled her hair in frustration.

Jackie finished tidying up and returned to sit on the sofa, remaining silent with great difficulty. As much as she wanted to interject something, she knew Rose needed to vent.

Rose continued. “And to just dump us off without talking to me, without any warning. Of all the arrogant, asinine, stupid things he’s done… I mean I knew he could be thick, but this just goes beyond… Is he so clueless because he’s an alien, or just because he’s a… a… a prat?” she said, quickly substituting for the word she wanted to say. Ever since her mum and Pete had had Tony, Jackie had been very strict about swearing in the house.

Jackie patted the sofa next to her, and Rose sank down next to her mum, resting her head on the older woman’s shoulder.

“Rose, do you think himself knew what the other one was gonna to do?”

“I dunno. I’m sure he knew that he was getting dumped off, he didn’t seem surprised at all. And the Doctor said they have all the same memories and think alike, so he must have had some clue as to what the Doctor was intending.” Rose sighed. “But whether he knew it or not, it’s not like he had any say in the matter. This was the Doctor’s decision, not his.”

“But sweetheart, isn’t he the Doctor as well?”

“I dunno. Is he?”

Jackie was silent for a moment.

“Rose, is that what you think I did? Just traded one Pete for the next like a spare part?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, Mum, I wasn’t talking about you and Dad!”

“I know you weren’t.” Jackie patted Rose’s knee. “But you could ‘ave been. I mean, after all, I married the parallel version of your dad, didn’t I?”

“This is different, Mum.”

“Yes, I know it is. When I met this Pete, my Pete and his Jackie were both dead, and your Doctor isn’t.”

Jackie turned so she could look at her daughter. “You and I never talked about this, but Pete and I had a lot of things to work out between us when we first got married. At first, I loved him because he was just like your dad, and he loved me because I was like his Jackie. But we fell in love with each other for the differences as much as for the similarities. Now I love him because of who he is, not just who he reminds me of, and that’s how Pete feels about me.”

“What are you saying, Mum?”

Jackie took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I’m just sayin’ be careful. I _never_ thought I’d be sayin’ this, but I think you should give himself a chance. But if you do, make sure you do it for this him, and not just because he reminds you of the other.”

 

When Pete and the Doctor returned to the Tyler mansion, Rose and Jackie had moved their discussion to the kitchen, and Jackie was drinking her bedtime tea. They both looked up as the two men entered. Jackie glanced at the clock.

“Well, that’s not as bad as I thought it might be.” Jackie said. “I expect you’re hungry.”

“Starved.” Pete was already rummaging in the refrigerator. He pulled out some leftover roasted chicken and potatoes and placed them on the counter. Pete turned back to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of grape Vitex.

“Can I fix you a plate?” Jackie asked the Doctor.

“No thanks, I’m not really that hungry.” 

Rose gave him a look. “You need to eat,” she said, shaking her finger at him. She grabbed a banana off a hook on the countertop and tossed it to him. 

In one move, the Doctor caught it and began unpeeling it. He grinned at her before taking a huge bite. “Fancy a bit of stargazing, Rose?” he said after he swallowed. “I want to see for myself which stars are still missing. Pete, do you have a map of the stars in that great library of yours? I need to compare it to what’s actually out there.”

“Of course,” Pete said through a mouthful of chicken. “I’ll go get it.”

“I would have thought you would have them all memorized,” Rose remarked.

The Doctor shook his head. “Not in this universe. Even the slightest changes could make all the difference in the world.”

“What are you looking for?” Rose asked.

“I’m not sure. Something. I dunno,” he said thoughtfully.

A half hour later, the Doctor and Rose were lying on a blanket on the lawn a distance away from the house, looking up at the stars. The Doctor was eating a sandwich which Rose had made and insisted he eat. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Rose, “and so peaceful.”

“It’s a bit too bright out,” said the Doctor around a mouthful of sandwich. “London’s too close. Still. Should be able to see well enough anyway, I suppose.” 

“Rose, where’s that star chart?”

The star chart was actually a set of lightweight pieces of Plexiglas with maps of the stars embossed into their surfaces. She reached for one and passed it over to him. It glowed faintly in the dark, allowing the user to line up the chart with the stars overhead.

The Doctor raised each chart over his head, one at a time, carefully attempting to line up every star on the Plexiglas with one in the sky. “Polaris, Betelgeuse, Merak, Zavijava,” he muttered. “Sirius, Aldebaran…” his voice trailed off as he concentrated. Finally, he sighed, placed the chart on the grass beside him, and then stared into the sky.

“Doctor, what is it?” Rose asked after a few minutes. 

“Some of the stars _are_ still gone.”

“I thought that when we stopped Davros from setting off the reality bomb, that would have stopped the stars from going out.” Rose said. “The reality bomb never happened, so the stars wouldn’t have gone out. Time would have been rewritten.”

“In theory, yeah,” he answered. He was silent for a moment. “I don’t understand it. This should have been sorted. We sorted this. Why hasn’t this been fixed?

“Maybe it’s just gonna take a while, yeah? After all, the stars didn’t go out all at once. It took a while.”

“You mean the effect of time being rewritten might take a while to ripple through the multiverse?” he asked. “I hope you’re right, because as it looks right now, one tenth of one percent of the stars are still gone. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you are talking about trillions of stars just in that one sector of space… Zebdara, Mizar, Beta Nivara, all gone.” The Doctor’s voice was emotionless. “Rhondia was the fourth planet circling Beta Nivara. Beautiful planet. It had enormous crystalline rock formations in the desert of its northern landmass. When the breezes would blow through them at just the right velocity, they would produce chords in major fifths. The rocks themselves made music. Twice a year, at the solstices, the angle of the sun would be such that the crystals would act like prisms, producing giant rainbows. The planet would become a symphony in light and sound.” He didn’t mention that it had been one of the planets destroyed in the backwash of the destruction of Gallifrey during the Time War in their home universe. The War, and his role in it, was still too painful to think about.

“That’s gonna to be the hardest part for you, isn’t it?” Rose asked quietly. “Not the new universe, the no more regenerations, the getting a job and a flat and all that. It’s gonna be the no new planets, no time travel, no just picking up and taking off in the TARDIS whenever you want.” The enormity of what he was facing suddenly struck Rose. 

“Not the first time,” he sniffed. “Didn’t always have the TARDIS you know. And it’s not as if I’ve never had a job before.”

“What? You with a job?” Rose was incredulous. “You mean, up at dawn, 9 to 5, half-hour for lunch, home in the tube, beans and toast in front of the telly kind of job?”

“Don’t laugh. I’ve told you about UNIT before. It was during that time when I was exiled on Earth. The Time Lords had deactivated the TARDIS and had taken away my understanding of temporal physics. Hence the stint working for UNIT.”

“I thought you, he, worked with UNIT, not for UNIT.”

The Doctor burst out laughing. “Oh, I could introduce you to a certain Brigadier who would disagree with you there.” He sighed. “Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. I wonder how he’s doing.”

“So who did my dad want you to meet?” Rose asked.

“Frank Collins.”

“Torchwood’s doctor?” 

“Yeah. I told Pete I needed an eye exam and I ended up getting a physical.” He paused. “You sound surprised. I thought you put Pete up to it.”

“I would never, ever do that.” To the Doctor’s ears Rose sounded hurt. “Not only would I never invade your privacy like that, but I wouldn’t want your physiology to accidentally get in some government computer somewhere. No telling what could happen.”

“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said. “I should have known you had nothing to do with it.”

“I’ll talk to Dad, warn him or something. We don’t want you on some watch list somewhere.”

“Thanks.”

They lay there in silence for a few moments.

“Rose,” the Doctor said finally, “Pete was talking about getting an identity for me. Had me pick out a name and everything.”

“So what did you pick?” Rose asked.

“John Smith. John Noble Smith. In honor of Donna.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “I know she’d like that. I didn’t really know her, but I know she’d like that.”

“Oh, you would have loved her, Rose. She’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Wouldn’t let me get away with anything. Told me off every chance she got, and quite right, too. Saved my life more than once. And for one shining moment she was the most important person in the universe. She was like a sister to me, and now cos I got some of her DNA in the meta-crisis, she kinda is one. Although I listed her as my mother on my birth certificate.” He chuckled. “She’d absolutely hate that.”

She laughed. 

“You’re gonna really miss her, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” the Doctor breathed, staring into the stars. 

He was silent for a moment, and then cleared his throat, to break the heavy mood that had descended. “Anyway, Rose, I just wanted to tell you that, about my name that is, in case, you know, you wanted to call me something else. Cos you can if you want,” he said nervously. He wondered if she knew how important this was for him. What she decided to call him would indicate what she really thought of him, who and what he was, and he was a bit afraid of what her answer might be.

“Well, what do you want me to call you?” she said softly.

“I want you to call me whatever you want to call me.” 

She was quiet for a moment. He wished he could see her face, to see what she was thinking, but it was just too dark.

Finally she said, “How are you going to think of yourself? In your head, what are you going to call you?”

He sighed. “I _am_ the Doctor, Rose. It’s literally impossible for me to think of myself in any other way. That is who I am. So in my mind, I’m always going to think of myself as the Doctor.”

“Then that’s what I’m going to call you, Doctor,” she said simply.

It felt like a weight had rolled off his chest. “Thank you, Rose. You don’t know what that means to me.”

She reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it.


	9. Chapter Eight

The next morning, Jackie was already on her third cup of tea when the Doctor entered the kitchen, wearing his blue pinstriped suit with one of his new t-shirts. He noticed that although she was one of the richest women on the planet, Jackie still seemed to wear track suits like she had on the Powell Estate. Admittedly they were nicer track suits, but they were still track suits. This one was powder blue, with the Vitex logo embroidered on the left breast pocket.

 

“Can I get you a cup of tea?” She got up and started pouring without waiting for an answer.

 

“Ahh, thank you,” he said as she handed him the cup.

 

“Wait!” she said urgently as he took a long swallow of the steaming tea. He blinked and his eyes began to water.

 

“It’s a little hot,” she said unnecessarily. “I just made it.”

 

“It’s perfect,” he whispered, unable for the moment to speak any more loudly. His mouth was burning.

 

“Can I get you some breakfast?” she asked, turning to put the pot down on the table. She gestured for him to sit down. “Of course, I could say lunch,” she said pointedly. “It’s late enough.”

 

“No, no, this is fine.” The Doctor glanced at the clock. Eleven o’clock. Well, that matched his internal clock. Thankfully, at least that portion of his Time Sense still worked. He looked around. “Where’s Rose?”

 

“Still sleeping,” she said, sitting down opposite him.

 

“Really?”

 

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. She hasn’t really slept since getting back. For days, she was up all night, sitting up with you when you were sick, then you kept her up to the wee hours last night looking at the stars. And it’s not like she got all that much sleep when she was looking for you, or him, either.” Jackie shook her head disapprovingly. “It’s bound to catch up with a body, even at her age.”

 

“I had no idea.” He tried to think of a way to ask about Rose’s health without sounding overly concerned but Jackie had already moved on. He realized he had missed a part of what she was saying.

 

“And to leave her there without even a goodbye, after all they had been to each other? I was so mad at him I could have just shaken him! I just hated him all over again. I mean, it was like we were back to the beginning when she first went off with him. Gone for a year with no word! I thought she had _died_. Carting all over the universe without letting me know where she was from one day to the next, I was worried sick.”

 

Jackie paused and then seemed to realize who it was who she was talking to. “Well, after you regenerated… Do I say you? Or do I say he? I dunno. Anyway, afterwards things did get a bit better. She got home more, she was happier when she did get home. But I was still worried about her, and I told her that. Rose, I said, you are changing. What are you going to do after I’m gone? There won’t be any reason for you to come back.”

 

At first, the Doctor tried to follow her train of thought, and then thought better of it. He didn’t think he’d ever understand Rose’s mother, and it was during conversations like these that he wasn’t certain he wanted to. He opened his mouth to try and ask about Rose again, but Jackie had already continued. And when he heard what she was saying, he began to listen intently.

 

“But then after we got trapped here…things were different. Not that I’m not happy. Despite everything, it’s been wonderful. I’ve got Pete, and Tony, and a beautiful house, and Rose isn’t gone all the time… Even when she was out in Cardiff she came home regularly. But Rose… When we first got here, she was so sad. Didn’t even want to get out of bed at first. Not that she slept. All she’d do is cry. And then she started working with Pete and Jake and Mickey, and she got better, but hard. That’s what she’s been, really hard. And she wouldn’t go out, not with her mates or anything. I’m not even sure she’s got any mates. I mean, she spent some time with Mickey every once in a while, but it wasn’t the same.”

 

“And we went all the way to Norway just so she could try and find you, him, whatever. She was so sad and you, he, was so sad.” She waved her hand in front of her face and then reached for a tissue. “Look at me. I’m tearing up just thinking about it.”

 

Jackie wiped her eyes, and then she poured herself another cup of tea and filled the Doctor’s cup. His hand started to ache again. He began to knead his right hand under the table, so she wouldn’t notice.

 

“But then we went back to get you, or do I say him? She spent years looking. Literally years. Anyway, she was so happy to find him, and then, well you know the rest. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy she’s still here. I didn’t think she would be. I thought she’d be back wi’ him in the other universe. But the way he just dumped her off like the TARDIS was a bus and he was just the bus driver, well, I tell you!” She got up and started cleaning the table.

 

Rose, dressed in jeans and a snug powder blue t-shirt, entered the kitchen.  She stopped in the doorway when she saw them talking and realized they hadn’t seen her.

 

“Jackie, I know how you feel about him, and I wish I could say I didn’t agree with you. But come, sit down. I want to tell you a story.” The Doctor waited until she came back and sat down.

 

Rose ducked out of the room and stood behind the door to listen, feeling guilty for eavesdropping on them, but not enough not to do it.

 

“Once upon a time, a long time ago,” started the Doctor, “hundreds, hundreds of years ago, there was a time traveler. He had a young woman named Susan traveling with him. The time traveler was already an old man, and Susan was young, her whole life ahead of her.”

 

“Well, one day while they were traveling, Susan met a young man named David and they fell in love. She realized she had to make a choice: she could stay with David, or leave with the old man. She chose to leave David because she loved the old man and didn’t want him to be alone.” The Doctor paused for a moment, caught up in his memories.

 

When the Doctor continued he stared directly into Jackie’s eyes. “When the time traveler discovered this, he knew he couldn’t let her throw away her whole future to just to keep an old man from being lonely. So he locked her out of the TARDIS and left her there. To live her own life, the life she was supposed to live.”

 

Jackie held her hand over her mouth, trying not to cry. Suddenly she jumped up, ran around the table, and smacked him on the back of the head. The sudden blow, although not particularly painful, was just hard enough to make him forget his aching hand.

 

He winced. “Ow, what was that for?”

 

“Now you went and made me feel sorry for him again!”

 

Scowling, he rubbed the spot where Jackie had hit him.

 

“Well, if you want to know what I think, I think we should just forget about the whole you he business and just say you. I mean, you are him, aren’t you, sor’ of? You have got his DNA and his memories and all.”

 

“Yes I am, Jackie, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

 

“Well, maybe, but this universe needs the Doctor, I ought to know, I’ve lived here for years now, and after all he’s not here and you are so you’re it. And the way I see it they are your memories, too, and it’s not as if he’s here to claim them.”

 

He found he had no answer to that.

 

Rose decided that this was probably as good a time as any to enter the room.

 

“Mornin’ sweetheart,” Jackie said when she spotted her daughter. “Did you sleep well?”

 

“Yep,” she answered, not wanting to admit to either her mother or the Doctor that she had hardly slept at all. Rose crossed the room and poured herself a cup of tea. After grabbing a couple of muffins, she sat down at the table next to the Doctor.

 

“Hello,” she said, handing him a muffin.

 

“Hello,” he replied, grinning widely at her.

 

“What?” she asked. His grin was infectious and she smiled back.

 

“Oh, nothing. Just this.” He gestured around the kitchen. “I still can’t get over all this. After Canary Wharf I never thought I’d see you again, and now I’m here, sitting next to you, having you hand me a muffin…”

 

“A banana muffin,” she grinned.

 

“A banana muffin…” his voice trailed off. “A banana muffin!” His grin grew even wider and lit up his face. He took a huge bite. “Oh, this is brilliant!” he said through a mouthful of muffin.

 

Rose laughed, but Jackie frowned.

 

“Oi, manners!” she scolded. “What you do on your own is your business, but I better never catch you teaching Tony your bad habits!”

 

The Doctor swallowed. “Sorry,” he said, only slightly chastened. Rose grinned and winked at him, bumping her shoulder into his. He grinned back.

 

“Speaking of himself, I’d better go see what he’s up to. He’s been quiet too long, that’s always a sign of trouble in five year old boys.” Jackie left the room.

 

The Doctor turned to Rose in surprise. “Tony’s five?”

 

Rose nodded. “Almost six, actually.”

 

The Doctor took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “So you’ve been here almost seven years? I had no idea it had been this long.”

 

“How long has it been for …” her voice trailed off.

 

“A little over half that. Actually, four years, three months, twenty-two days, eleven hours, and seventeen minutes. Roughly,” he said with a small smile.

 

She smiled at his answer. “Oh,” she said. She imagined he could tell her to the millisecond if she asked.

 

They sat in silence for a moment.

 

Rose’s mind returned to the conversation she had overheard between the Doctor and her mum. She was almost afraid of asking the question that was gnawing at her, not certain if she really wanted the answer. Finally, Rose couldn’t help herself. “Doctor, did you, did he, love Susan?” she asked tentatively.

 

“Oh, you heard that, did you?” he asked.

 

She nodded, hugging herself tightly.

 

The Doctor looked out the window. “You know,” he said, “this is a really, really beautiful day. Much too nice a day to stay inside. Fancy a walk?”

 

“Okay,” she answered.

 

They tidied up the table and then Rose led the way outside.

 

As beautiful as the day had appeared through the window, it was nothing compared to what it actually was outdoors. The garden of the Tyler mansion was gorgeous. From the vivid green of the immaculately manicured lawn, to the brilliant blue of the cloudless sky, to the hot pinks, vibrant oranges, and delicate lavenders of the lilies and irises planted in strategically placed flower beds, the grounds were a riot of color.

 

The Doctor took Rose’s hand, intertwining their fingers. Every time he took her hand, ever since that very first time at Henrik’s, he was always struck with how right her hand felt in his, and he wondered if she felt the same way. He squeezed her hand gently, and she squeezed back, smiling up at him.

 

After they crossed the garden, they slowly walked down a narrow, winding path that led into a small, wooded area near the Tyler home. The day was rapidly warming, and despite the breeze that was gently blowing across the lawn, the Doctor was beginning to feel almost uncomfortably warm. It was a relief to enter the shade created by the stand of oak trees. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees, creating a dappled pattern on the ground.

 

They followed the path to its end and discovered a large, man-made pond that Rose had not known was there. Despite having lived at the mansion off and on for years, she had rarely ventured out to explore the grounds and surrounding area. The pond was truly lovely, she thought, like something out of a picture book or a fairy story. Sunlight sparkled on the surface of the water, and at the other end of the pond, a family of ducks swam.

 

The Doctor sat down on a large rock near the shore. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Even here, near the pond, he could smell the delicate fragrance of the flowers from the Tyler’s garden in the air.

 

“Now this is really beautiful. Really, really beautiful. This is what life is about. No Daleks, no Cybermen. Just the sun, the breeze, and the ducks.” He looked up at her and smiled, patting a spot on the rock next to him. Rose sat down and waited.

 

After a few minutes of sitting in the sun, feeling the breeze, and listening to the ducks, Rose could wait no longer.

 

“Doctor,” she prompted. “Susan?”

 

“Ahhh, yes. Susan.” He smiled at the bittersweet memory of the precocious young girl who had turned into such an extraordinary young woman. “Yes. She was loved,” he said quietly. He found he had a lump in his throat. He took a deep breath, trying to control the emotions that were threatening to overtake him. “Deeply, deeply loved,” he said finally.

 

Rose sat in silence, not knowing what to say, what to feel, not even what to think.

 

“But not in the way that you mean,” the Doctor continued. He paused, tensing up. He knew he was hurting her, had always hurt her, by not being completely honest and open, but he didn’t really know how to open up. Martha had been right. He could talk and talk and never really say anything. A lifetime of deflection and avoidance of painful subjects was so ingrained that he wasn’t sure how to change. And some subjects were just so much more painful than others. But he wanted to change, needed to change, if only for her sake. Best to just jump right in.

 

“I am so sorry, Rose. I am so rubbish at this.”

 

She looked at him, puzzled. “Rubbish at what?”

 

The Doctor took a deep breath. When he spoke, he struggled to find the proper pronoun again. Human languages were just so inadequate for some concepts. “Susan was my, our, the Doctor’s, granddaughter.”

 

Her jaw dropped.

 

“I’m sorry, I just find it so hard to talk about…” he said.

 

“No, s’okay. You don’t have to if you don’t want to…”

 

“No, it’s not okay, Rose.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I want you to be able to ask me anything, I want to be able to tell you everything. And I will. I promise. I’m just no bloody good at it.”

 

He took her hand and they both looked out at the pond for a moment.

 

The Doctor tried to begin again. “When I left … Gallifrey,” he said, finding he still occasionally stumbled over the name of his home planet even after all this time, “I traveled alone for a while. On a return visit, I discovered Susan was struggling with the strict dictates of Gallifreyan society and not doing well at the Academy even though she was truly brilliant. Her parents were at a loss as to what to do with her, and eventually asked me to take her with me when I left. She was the first person to ever travel with me in the TARDIS. She traveled with me for several years and we became quite close.” He paused for a moment, and swallowed thickly. “Susan would never have left if she hadn’t been forced to. She would never have gotten married, never had children, never had a complete life because of her devotion to a lonely old man. And I loved her for it.”

 

“Doctor, what happened to Susan?” Rose asked quietly.

 

“She died in the Time War. Along with everyone else,” he said softly. His voice broke slightly as he tried to control the tidal waves of emotion that threatened to overtake him.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Rose whispered and squeezed his hand.

 

After a moment, the Doctor composed himself.  He turned to Rose and touched her jaw line, gently turning her face toward his. “She was not you, and you are not her. Obviously my relationship to her was completely different. I, well, we, have traveled with many people over the years, well, centuries really.” He stared into her eyes, hoping she would understand him. “And I assure you, in all that time, there has never been anyone else like you. There is only one Rose Marion Tyler.”

 

Finally, Rose broke the silence. “Then why did he leave me?” she asked quietly, her voice cracking slightly despite her best efforts to remain calm.

 

“Oh, Rose,” he breathed, turning toward her and pulling her into his arms. He knew she had intended it as a rhetorical question, but he wanted to answer anyway. He just wasn’t sure what to say. As soon as he had discovered what his other self had intended to do, to leave her in the parallel world, he had been certain it would all go a bit pear-shaped, and it had. He wanted to talk to her about who he was, to tell her that he hadn’t truly left, but he had no idea if she was ready to hear it. And he had no idea how to say it anyway. Blimey, he was rubbish at this sort of thing.

 

Her head was resting on his shoulder, and he could feel she was shaking slightly. “Oh, Rose,” he whispered to her finally, “he didn’t want to leave you, but he really believed you’d be happier with me.”

 

She didn’t respond, and he could tell she was trying not to cry. Conflicting feelings surged through him: fury at his other self for hurting her and putting them in this situation, jealousy that she loved his other self and not him, hurt and frustration that she didn’t actually believe him to be the Doctor, and powerlessness that he couldn’t make her stop hurting. And joy mixed with guilt that despite everything, she was with him, in his arms, and not with his other self.


	10. Chapter Nine

They sat there like that, on a rock next to a pond near the Tyler mansion, Rose in his arms, for minutes that he wished could stretch to eternity. He was only sorry that the reason that he was holding her like this was because she was crying over his other self, the full Time Lord Doctor in the other universe.

 

He longed to hold her tightly, to bury his face in her hair, to kiss her as she had kissed him on the beach, but he held himself back. She needed a comforting friend, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. So he held her gently, carefully, as if she were a precious work of art, a fragile flower. Which she was. His beautiful, fragile, precious Rose.

 

But not his, he reminded himself.

 

Eventually, as she began to pull away from him, he reluctantly released her. She wiped her face with her hands, and he reached into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to her. She took it gratefully.

 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes. She didn’t look at him. “Really thought I was done with cryin’.”

 

“You don’t have to be sorry, Rose,” he said quietly. “I know how much he hurt you.”

 

Rose really didn’t want to discuss the other Doctor with him. Not only was it obviously still too painful, but it wasn’t fair to him. Not after everything he had said to her on the beach.

 

No, she was not thinking about the beach. Not yet, at any rate.

 

She turned to look at him and noticed a large, damp spot on his shoulder. Slightly embarrassed, she took the handkerchief and dabbed at it, trying to dry it.

 

“Sorry ‘bout this, too,” she said. “I got you all wet.”

 

“ ‘S okay,” he said. He tried to keep his tone light. “I’m fairly waterproof. If the worst thing that happens to me today is that Rose Tyler uses me as a giant hanky, I think I’m doing well.”

 

She laughed a little, but avoided looking at his face, still dabbing at the damp spot on his shoulder. He grabbed her hand, preventing her from continuing. With his other hand he tilted up her chin, forcing her to look at him.

 

“Rose, I want you to know something,” he said softly. “I’m always here for you, whatever you need. Even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on. Understand?”

 

She stared at him, at the handsome features she knew so well that also belonged to someone else. They were so alike. But they were so very different, too. Her Doctor had never been this open with her, had never really shared any of his past with her. And he had always scrupulously avoided any type of emotional scenes, preferring to distract her with a new destination in the TARDIS or a trip to her mother’s when things got too intense between them.

 

And she realized she found this Doctor’s openness very appealing.

 

Not ready to deal with the implications of _that_ , she stood and smiled, stretching out her hand to him.

 

“Ready to go back?” she asked, and took his hand as he stood.

 

And on the walk back to the house, the Doctor was struck with the thought that despite their problems, if she was still willing to let him hold her, still willing to hold his hand, perhaps there was hope they could work things out.

 

 

 

When the Doctor and Rose returned to the mansion, Jackie informed them that Pete had been looking for them. They found him in his study.

 

“Thank goodness you two are back.” Pete stood up as they entered the room. “I could really use your help. Doctor, you may remember I told you about one of our scientists going missing? ”

 

“What? Who?” asked Rose, as the Doctor nodded.

 

“Richard Bradford,” Pete answered her, holding up one hand to silence her. He turned back to the Doctor. “He’s the head of our alternative energies program. He disappeared from his lab at Torchwood late Wednesday night. Since then, there have been a rash of disappearances all over the area. The most notable is of a young woman who disappeared from an electrical distribution substation on Griffith Street last night under very suspicious circumstances.”

 

“When you say suspicious, what do you mean?” the Doctor asked.

 

“She disappeared at approximately the same time as a power outage occurred in the facility.” Pete said. “There have been more than a half dozen disappearances from the area within the last forty eight hours. Torchwood has been called in to investigate the disappearances, and I’d really like the two of you to investigate the substation. We suspect there’s a link between the power outages and the disappearances and I’m concerned someone may have used Bradford’s research to build a weapon. Now I know I told you, Doctor, that I’d talk to Rose about you joining Torchwood…”

 

Rose looked sharply at the Doctor at this.

 

“But we really could use you right away on this. Would you consider taking the job on a temporary basis?”

 

The Doctor looked at Pete. Whatever was going on, whatever was causing these disappearances, had Torchwood’s Director worried. And Pete Tyler was not the type of person to worry unnecessarily.

 

“Of course, Pete,” he answered. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

 

“Terrific!” Pete Tyler looked relieved.

 

“What was Bradford working on? Weaponry?’’ the Doctor asked.

 

“No, and that’s the part of this that doesn’t make any sense,” Pete answered. “He was working on developing alternate energy sources, green technologies, that sort of thing. His disappearance could be a coincidence…”

 

“I’m not much of a believer in coincidence,” said the Doctor.

 

“Me neither. At least not where this is concerned,” Pete responded. “Now I have some things for you. Rose, I sent you a copy of all the intel we have on Kate Lee, the technician who went missing at the substation, as well as the times and locations of all the power outages in the area correlated to the other disappearances. You should be able to access them through your EPad. And I’ll try and pull together everything I can find on Dr. Bradford’s research and send that to you as well.”

 

“Okay,” Rose nodded.

 

“And Doctor, this is for you.” Pete handed the Doctor a large padded envelope. “Inside you’ll find your new ID as well as a bunch of other credentials I had our staff put together. It arrived about an hour ago.”

 

“That was fast.” The Doctor was impressed.

 

“No point in having a night crew if you don’t use them. Rose, why don’t you and the Doctor look over the information on your EPad and then head over to the substation. I’ve already told them to expect you both in an hour.”

 

The Doctor scowled at Pete. “You already told them? What if I had said no?”

 

“Well then I would have sent my employee Rose Tyler over to investigate by herself,” said Pete shrewdly. “For some reason I get the impression she’d have had your company either way.”

 

The Doctor sighed heavily as he realized he had been out maneuvered by a master.

 

Rose giggled.

 

 

 

After quickly changing into work clothes and retrieving her EPad from her room, Rose and the Doctor climbed into her tiny car and headed to the electrical substation. The Doctor had the envelope Pete gave him in his lap. As Rose drove, he held Rose’s tablet computer in one hand while he accessed the Torchwood files with the other. She asked him if he needed her password to log on, and he shot her a very familiar look, one that always made her feel like she had dribbled on herself.

 

Being Sunday, the traffic was much lighter than it had been the previous day, but it still took some time to get to Griffith Street. As they drove, the Doctor quickly scanned the files, unconsciously pulling on the collar of his t-shirt. As soon as he realized he was doing it, he forced himself to stop. Pete’s London really was bloody hot. Or maybe it was just him, he thought in frustration. No one else seemed bothered by the heat, and he seemed to feel hot all the time.

 

He returned to the files, reading the most pertinent parts aloud to Rose as she drove. After they both felt they were as well briefed as they could be, the Doctor opened Pete’s envelope. In it he found a passport, a birth certificate, and a wallet containing a variety of IDs in his new name, all emblazoned with his picture. He wondered how Pete had managed that since he certainly hadn’t posed for an ID photo. As he looked through the wallet, he also saw one listing him as a Torchwood employee. He raised one eyebrow at that. Obviously Pete Tyler had assumed he’d accept the job. Then his eyes widened as he realized the wallet also contained a credit card and several thousand pounds in cash. At the bottom of the envelope were a glasses case and an ID on a cord similar to the one he had seen Pete wear the previous night. After a brief glance at everything, he shoved it all in various pockets.

 

“Doctor?” Rose said to him as he finished putting everything away. “What did my dad mean when he said he was going to talk to me about you joining Torchwood? Why would he talk to me?”

 

When she didn’t get an immediate response, she glanced over at him. He evidently found the London streets fascinating because he wouldn’t turn and look at her. He was also pulling on his ear. So whatever the reason was, she guessed he didn’t want to admit it.

 

Honestly, with all his tics and mannerisms, there ought to be a code book.

 

Finally he said, a bit grudgingly, “Well, I asked him to.”

 

“Why on earth would you do that?”

 

“Well, you know me and you know this world’s Torchwood,” he replied. “You better than anyone would know if my working there would be a good fit.”

 

“You could have asked me that yourself. What’s the real reason?”

 

He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush.  “Rose, I know that this situation has been forced on you. I didn’t want to put you in a position of having to spend more time with me if you didn’t want to, and if you didn’t want to, I didn’t want you to have to tell me to my face.” _And if you didn’t, I’d rather hear it from Pete than you,_ he thought.

 

“Oh, don’t be thick,” she laughed as she turned onto the motorway. He turned to her in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you? You and I are friends. The other Doctor and I were always friends, and so are we.”

 

Although he was hurt as always by Rose’s subtle implication that he wasn’t the Doctor, they _really, really_ needed to discuss that, that was more than outweighed by the fact that she referred to him as a friend. Friends with Rose Tyler. He could live with that. It wasn’t as if he had ever truly expected more. Wanted, yes. Hoped for, oh yes. Expected? No.

 

“Rose,” he said, “you do know that I am the...”

 

“But as far as the other bit,” she interrupted him, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I dunno. You, working for Torchwood? I mean, they’d be lucky to have you. There isn’t anyone better in this universe for dealing with aliens.”

 

“I am brilliant, aren’t I?” he said cheekily.

 

She ignored this and continued her own train of thought. “But what would you actually do there? It’s not as if there is a full scale alien invasion on this Earth every day. You could clear up our years of backlog of identifying alien artifacts, but that would probably only take you a week, if that. And I really don’t see you cooperating on reverse engineering alien tech once it is identified. You wouldn’t really need to, anyway, would you? You’d already know how it works. And I _really_ don’t see you being happy chasing weevils in Cardiff.” Weevils were a dangerous, roughly humanoid, alien species that had somehow managed to be transported through the rift and were living, among other places, in the sewers in Cardiff. One of the duties of the Cardiff branch of Torchwood was to round them up when they started causing trouble for the human inhabitants.

 

“Well, I don’t really _need_ to get a job…” he began to say.

 

“Oh yes you do,” she disagreed. “Not only do you need money, which you’ve probably forgotten, but you definitely need something to do. I wouldn’t want to inflict a bored Doctor on this or any other world.”

 

He snorted at that image. It would scare even him. Luckily, or intentionally, his other self had provided for that. “Believe me, I have plenty to do. That piece of TARDIS coral won’t just grow by itself. Well, it will, but it wouldn’t do us any good. On its own it could take thousands of years, depending on the temperature, humidity level, composition of the atmosphere and growing matrix, gravity and rotation of the planet involved, and that’s just for starters. And if we want this piece to grow faster…”

 

“Donna said you could increase the speed.” She took the exit to Griffith Street.

 

“Yes I can. Maybe. _If_ she’s right about shatterfrying the plasma shell. But if I’m going to do this I’m going to have to synthesize the chemicals to provide the optimum growing matrix, as well as build the some of the equipment involved. They certainly aren’t available on a 21st century Earth in either universe. Plus I’ll need to find a location for it to grow that provides the optimal energy requirements. And is big enough for a growing TARDIS. And that’s assuming our little piece of coral can actually make the transition to the energies of this Universe. That’s not necessarily a sure thing.”

 

“Our?” Rose asked, turning into the car park. She found a spot to park near the entrance to the building.

 

“What?” the Doctor asked her, puzzled by the question.

 

After she parked she turned to face him. “You said _our_. _Our_ piece of coral.”

 

“Of course.” At the look of surprise on her face he smiled. “Of course it is ours. The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. As it should be.  I wouldn’t want it without you.”

 

Rose wondered if she should feel guilty at how absurdly pleased his response made her feel.

 

 


	11. Chapter Ten

“Hello, I’m Rose Tyler, and this is the Doctor.” Rose greeted the three employees who met them in the lobby of the Griffith Street substation. Actually, to call it a lobby was a bit of an exaggeration, she thought. It really wasn’t much more than a slight widening of the hallway near the door. “We’re from Torchwood.” 

The Doctor and Rose both pulled out their wallets to flash their credentials. Rose wasn’t surprised when no one bothered to look at their IDs. In all her years working for Torchwood, she could probably count on one hand the number of times someone had even glanced at her ID when she had pulled it out. 

“Hello,” said the Doctor brightly. “John Smith.” He thrust his hand out to a short, thin man in work coveralls. “You must be Kevin Olsen, the supervisor.”

“No, I’m Bruce Randall. This is…” He looked uncomfortable and began to point to a large, more than slightly grubby man next to him, but the Doctor had already moved on to the tall, thin woman next to Bruce. She was fairly young and had long, ginger hair. Her black t-shirt advertising a local pub, tight black jeans and heavy makeup made her look even younger than she probably was.

“Then you must be Kevin,” the Doctor said, grabbing her hand and shaking it vigorously. “Funny, you don’t look like a Kevin. We’ve been sent ‘round to check out your computer problems.”

“No, I’m Monica Sellers.” The young woman looked distinctly uneasy, and glanced at the large man next to her.

“I’m Kevin Olsen,” the big, unkempt man said, stepping forward.

“Surely not,” responded the Doctor, his smile fading. An awkward silence descended on the group. “Oh, I see. Well. Let’s get on with it then.”

Rose glanced at the Doctor, trying to figure out what he was up to. For some reason he was being intentionally insulting. He knew exactly who the substation boss was. They both did. There had been photos of all the regular substation employees as well as dossiers on them in the files from Pete. 

“Now, Kevin…” The Doctor turned to Rose. “Which one is Kevin again?” he whispered, intentionally loud enough to be overheard. She decided he must be attempting to make the supervisor feel off balance and decided to play along.

“The smelly one.” She whispered back at the same volume.

“Ahhh, yes,” he sighed, looking pained. “Now Kevin, you have been having some computer troubles?”

“I don’t know why they’ve sent ‘round you lot.” Kevin said gruffly, leading them down a long nondescript hallway. “A computer tech should be able to handle it. What does Torchwood have to do with any of this?”

“What indeed…” the Doctor said. “I understand you also have a missing staff member.”

Monica responded. “Yes,” she said. “Kate Lee. She was on shift here when the computers started having problems, but we haven’t been able to locate her and she never clocked out.”

“We’ve called her mobile and there was no answer,” interjected Bruce. “And I went ‘round to her flat and even checked with her parents. They haven’t heard from her in days.”

“She’s probably just run off with her boyfriend,” said Kevin contemptuously. “She’ll turn up.”

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend.” Monica whirled on her boss angrily. “You never gave her enough time off to even meet anyone.”

The Doctor walked down the hallway, hands plunged deep in his trouser pockets, seemingly ignoring them in favor of the fluorescent lights installed in the ceiling. Rose looked at him curiously for a moment, and then turned to Monica. “Have you been able to check the security cameras?” she asked.

“Not yet,” the other woman responded. “They aren’t on the same system as the computers, but they went down at the same time.”

The Doctor was still looking at the ceiling. “These lights, are they always this color?”

“Yeah, so what?” Kevin asked.

“No, actually, they’re not,” Bruce interjected. “They look a little more blue than usual to me.”

“Really?” the Doctor asked thoughtfully.

“Is that important?” Rose asked.

“Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not.” He pulled his attention away from the lights and grinned manically at her. “Let’s go look at those computers.”

As they were talking, the substation employees had already continued down the hallway to the control room. The Doctor quickly followed them, and Rose, with her shorter legs, had to almost jog to keep up. 

To everyone’s surprise, everything in the room, all the computers, monitors, and other equipment, seemed to be working normally.

“I, I don’t understand,” the substation supervisor sputtered. “Nothing was working a minute ago.”

“Seems to be now,” the Doctor responded. 

Rose watched as the Doctor walked to the nearest computer terminal and sat down on the chair in front of it, taking a moment to adjust the height of the seat to fit his long legs. He patted his pockets as if he was looking for something, and then stopped, shaking his head. Sighing loudly, he began to type rapidly. Rose saw him squint at the monitor, stop, and pull his glasses out of a case in his pocket. 

Her eyes widened and her breath caught when she saw him put them on. How had she forgotten those glasses? She had always thought the Doctor was particularly gorgeous in a geeky sort of way when he wore them, even had thought of them as his sexy specs. Although she had never told him, she had always suspected the Doctor knew how much she liked them. And to see _this_ Doctor wear them…

Monica Sellers interrupted her train of thought. “I can get you the passwords and security codes if you want,” the tall, ginger woman offered to the Doctor.

Rose grinned. “He doesn’t need them.” 

The Doctor glanced over at her and winked before returning to his work on the computer. 

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He thinks he’s so impressive,” Rose said to the other woman, trying not to laugh.

“I am so impressive,” he smirked. He finished typing and spun the chair around, facing Olsen. “Well, that’s sorted. Nothing wrong with the computers that I can see. And if there was something wrong, I’d be the one to see it.” He stood up, whipping off his glasses and placing them back in his pocket. “Since I can’t access the security camera footage from here, where would I find it?”

“If the computers are working, why do you need to see the CCTV?” Olsen demanded rudely.

What had been a cordial environment changed in an instant. The Doctor slowly took a step toward him, jaw clenched, hands balled in fists, eyes flashing. In response, Olsen glared at him, almost daring him to try something. Bruce, Monica and Rose all tensed up in expectation of a confrontation.

“Might I remind you that you have a missing employee?” the Doctor said slowly in a low, dangerous voice. “She disappeared under mysterious circumstances at the moment of the blackout. Now an intelligent man would cooperate with me and not get in my way, especially if he had a history of harassing said employee and is a suspect in her disappearance. But then an intelligent man wouldn’t have been harassing her in the first place. Now I say again, where will I find the CCTV video?”

“Down to the end of the hall, turn right, third door on the left, next to the break room,” Bruce Randall volunteered nervously. “Do you want me to come show you?”

“No, it’s not necessary,” the Doctor answered, glaring back at the substation boss for a moment longer before turning toward the door. “You three stay here. Coming, Rose?”

With a glance at Bruce and Monica, Rose followed him out of the room and into the hall, the door closing behind them by itself. The Doctor took a deep breath, slowly letting it out, willing himself to calm down. He had felt an almost overwhelming flash of rage over thoughtless disregard Olsen had over the missing Kate Lee, and he didn’t want Rose to see how tempted he had been to punch the substation boss. His other self’s accusations of him being dangerous momentarily flashed through his mind. No, he told himself. He wasn’t dangerous. He refused to accept it.

“What do you think?” Rose asked in a low voice as they walked down the hall.

“I think the man’s an idiot. I think the other two are scared of him. And I think we really need to see the security camera records.”

The CCTV system was an older one, the images digitally stored on computer and backed up on rewritable CDs. It was completely self-contained, independent of the network the rest of the computers were on. That explained why it was inaccessible from the control room. The Doctor mentioned that to Rose, and then gave her a running commentary of the pros and cons of having an independent system as he accessed the video of the day Kate Lee went missing from the computer terminal. Rose mostly tuned him out as she looked for the corresponding day in the back up CDs neatly lined up on metal utility shelves placed against a wall. She found it as he managed to pull the footage up on the screen.

“Here we go,” he said as she pocketed the CD. “Rose, come take a look at this.”

He was bent over the computer terminal, there being no chair in the room for some reason. Glasses back on, he was staring intently at the screen. Rose came up behind him and watched over his shoulder. As soon as he realized she was there, he pressed a button, starting the playback.

“Here is the beginning of her shift. Now if we just fast forward a bit…” He typed a command and the images on the screen flew past. He typed again, and the picture slowed. The screen showed a beautiful, young Asian woman in the main hallway. “Okay, here we are. There she is walking down the corridor.”

“Is there any sound?” Rose asked. “She seems to be talking.”

“Visual only. And there doesn’t appear to be anyone else there. She seems to be talking to herself. You humans do seem to do that.”

Rose raised her eyebrow. “Pot and kettle, Doctor. It’s not just humans that talk to themselves. And you better watch out. You’re one of us now.”

He snorted. “Don’t remind me. And I’m not _all_ human, you know. Not even half. Probably. Probably less than half. Not exactly one of you.”

“Close enough. Certainly closer than you were.”

He raised an eyebrow at her comments and wondered if she realized what she was implying with what she had just said. Unfortunately, this was not the time to discuss the meta-crisis and his identity. With some reluctance, he forced himself to ignore her remarks in favor of what was on the screen. “Oooh, this is interesting. See the lights flickering? And she appears to be headed back to the control room.” He typed a command and the image on the screen changed to the control room. They watched as Kate Lee entered. She ran to a computer terminal and started to type. And then the Doctor and Rose watched in horror as the lights flickered on screen, Kate was surrounded by light and vanished.

“We need to get back to the control room,” the Doctor said to Rose grimly. 

They headed out of the room and back down the hall. Suddenly the Doctor stopped in his tracks and looked around. Rose watched as he sniffed the air.

“Do you smell that?” he asked her.

She sniffed. There was something… there was something right at the edge of her awareness. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t quite make it out.

“Kinda. Almost but not quite.” She sniffed again, trying but not quite managing to capture the scent.

“Well, not surprising.” He sniffed again. “The human sense of olfaction is not nearly as strong as a Time Lord’s.”

She shot him a look. Was that an insult? “So, what is that smell?”

“Ozone.”

“Ozone?”

“Yes, ozone. It’s an oxygen molecule that has three oxygen atoms rather than the usual two. It’s a fairly unstable molecule. You won’t normally find a lot of it just hanging around.” He squinted up again at the fluorescent lights installed in the ceiling hallway. “And one of the ways ozone is produced…”

“Is by an electrical charge running through the atmosphere,” she finished for him. “Like lightning.”

He looked down at her in amazement, a wide smile breaking out across his face. “Someone’s been studying while I haven’t been around.”

Above them, the lights began to flicker, accompanied by a loud crackling sound. The Doctor and Rose looked at each other, eyes wide. In the distance they could hear someone, possibly Bruce, call for them. The Doctor grabbed her hand.

“Run!” he ordered.

They flew down the hall and into the control room. All the lights, equipment monitors, and computer screens were flickering. The three substation employees were each working on separate terminals, presumably attempting to fix whatever was causing the problem.

“Get back!” the Doctor yelled. Something in his voice made them all, even Kevin, obey him instantly.

As he rushed to the same terminal he had worked on before, Rose suddenly realized what he was about to do.

“No!” she screamed, but she was too late.

He reached out with his right hand and touched the keyboard. At the same instant, a glowing, blue light surrounded him. Rose watched in horror as he was flung backwards across the room and collapsed on the floor, unconscious.


	12. Chapter Eleven

Rose sat cross legged on the floor, the Doctor’s head in her lap, gently stroking his hair. It had been less than a week since she had been in the same position with the Time Lord in the other universe. She flashed back to sitting in a deserted roadway, the Doctor’s head cradled in her lap, having just found him again only to have him shot by a Dalek and dying in her lap. He had only been able to save his life by partially regenerating, and, in an ironic twist, set in motion the events that had created the existence of the man who now lay unconscious on the floor with his head in her lap.

For the first time, what he had said to her at Darlig Ulv Stranden really struck home. No more regenerations. No more regenerations. Something like this could really kill him and that would be it. He would be gone. No more regenerations. At the time, he had been talking about aging along side of her, at the same rate as she, offering to spend his life with her. She knew it meant he would eventually die. It hadn’t occurred to her he could be killed. She wondered if it had occurred to him.

When he had been so ill, when he had been unconscious for so long, she had worried that he could die. She now realized that deep down, she hadn’t really believed it. But seeing him now, unconscious on the floor, she knew. She believed. He had a fragile, part human body and he was eventually going to die. And unless he was a lot more careful, it could be soon. Would be soon.

When he had first collapsed, when the light emanating from the computer surrounded him and threw him across the room, Rose had frozen, terrified. A vision from her nightmares, of an alternate timeline she had experienced in which the Doctor had died, flashed in front of her eyes. But in less than a second her Torchwood training and experience had taken over.

“Don’t touch him!” she had shouted, as Monica had rushed toward him. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”

“I’ll call 999,” Randall had said, pulling his mobile from his pocket.

“No!” she had shouted, holding up her hand in a gesture which universally meant stop.

The small man ignored her and began to dial the number.

“Stop!” she had ordered, grabbing the mobile out of his hand. “Don’t touch anything, don’t call anyone, and especially don’t touch him.”

At that point she had sent them into the break room, ordering them to stay off the telephone and keep silent about everything they had seen. When Olsen had looked as if he was going to challenge her authority, she had threatened them all with prosecution for disobeying a government official in a crisis, disregard for civilian authority, and treason to the government. She may have even mentioned the War Powers Act and the Shadow Proclamation. It was all crap, well mostly crap, but it had scared them enough to leave her alone and stay off the phones, which was her intent. 

She had then called her father and asked for a Torchwood containment team to be sent out.

“Are you alright?” Pete had asked.

“I’m fine,” she had responded, kneeling down and checking on the Doctor’s vital signs. He was breathing and his heart rate was strong, she had noted to herself in relief, but he was incredibly pale and clammy to the touch.

“And the Doctor?”

“He’s been hurt but he’ll be fine,” she had responded, swallowing her fear and hoping she wasn’t lying.

That had been more than five minutes ago, and he still was unconscious. 

Her fingertips ghosted through his hair, then continued along the side of his face, tracing the line of his sideburn and jaw. The initial paralyzing terror she had felt was gone, but it had been replaced with a fear for his life that tightened around her heart, clenched her stomach and was settling almost bone deep into her body. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths to prevent herself from panicking. 

Suddenly the Doctor’s dark brown eyes popped open and he smiled at her. She sighed in relief.

“Hello, Rose,” he said brightly, and then winced in pain. “Oh, my head,” he moaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples.

“Just lie still,” Rose urged.

“What happened?” he asked.

“There was a flash of light when you touched one of the computer keyboards. It threw you across the room and knocked you unconscious.”

The Doctor tried to remember but the pain in his head was making it difficult. Images flashed through his brain as he tried to make sense of them. Hallway. Flickering lights. Rose’s hand in his. Flickering computer monitors. Rose screaming. Then, nothing. No. Wait. What? Not nothing. There was something there, something on the edge of his awareness, if he could just reach out and touch it…

His eyes widened in shock, and, despite the pain, he jumped to his feet. Swaying slightly, and fighting nausea, he gripped the edge of a workstation for support. 

“We’ve got to find Pete,” he told her.

“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” he responded. “And it’s not good.”

While they waited for the containment team from Torchwood to arrive, Rose gathered up all the backup CCTV CDs. She had Monica create a CD for the current day, up to and including the last few hours. The Doctor wanted to help, but he was still pale and seemed to be having trouble standing, so she ordered him to rest while she had taken over. To her complete surprise, he didn’t argue with her. Her surprise changed to concern, however, when he sank down to sit on the floor with his back against the wall. She didn’t have time to check on him, however, because at that moment Torchwood’s team arrived. Rose briefed them and then helped the Doctor to the car.

On the drive back to the mansion, the atmosphere in the Mini Cooper was strained. 

“Rose, what’s wrong?” the Doctor eventually asked, breaking the silence.

“Wrong? Why should anything be wrong?” Her voice was shrill and she was pointedly not looking at him. “You were almost killed back there. You could have died. And you can’t regenerate. And you had just seen what it had done to Kate Lee and you did it anyway.” She tightened her grip on the steering wheel to try to stop her hands shaking. “And for what? What the hell were you thinking?”

The Doctor looked out the window and didn’t answer. The truth was, for a split second the energy had seemed familiar to him, and he had been convinced that he might be able to identify it if he had been able to feel it, to touch it both mentally and physically. However, he hadn’t taken into account the new DNA in his body. He didn’t want to admit that for a moment he had forgotten he wasn’t a full Time Lord anymore.

Rose took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. It was obvious he had no intention of answering her. He probably had had a good reason, but what he had done had been extremely foolhardy. But it wouldn’t do any good for him to survive that, whatever that was, just to have her kill him in an auto accident. 

After she had composed herself, she glanced at him.

“You said you knew what was going on. What is it?”

At his answer, she put on speed and raced back to the mansion.

 

“It’s a WHAT?”

Pete Tyler stared at his step-daughter. Rose was currently pacing around the room, seemingly unable to sit still. When she and the Doctor had first arrived back at the mansion, they immediately sought him out and had found he was still in his study. He was working from home as it was Sunday, fulfilling a promise to Jackie that he’d spend at least one full day home each week. The Doctor had walked in slowly, almost painfully, and Rose shadowed his every move, appearing to want to help him but holding herself back. They had each taken a seat across the desk from him, but after a moment Rose had jumped back up and had stayed in motion ever since. The Doctor, for his part, sat quietly and had not spoken a word since they had arrived.

“It’s not a weapon; it appears to be an alien attack.” Rose turned to the Doctor. “Tell him what you told me.”

“I’m telepathic and when I was attacked, for lack of a better word,” the Doctor said slowly, “I felt a presence, a mind, touch my mind.”

“Could you tell what it wanted?” Pete asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “It was over too quickly. And it may not have wanted anything, at least not in the sense that you mean.” He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember. “I couldn’t get the sense of any thoughts whatsoever. It may not even be sentient, but whatever it is, it is definitely alive.”

“And we think whatever attacked the Doctor is also behind the disappearances of all the missing people.” She crossed back to the desk and sat down. “We saw CCTV footage of Kate Lee’s disappearance. She was touching a computer terminal when she was surrounded by a bright light and then disappeared. The same thing happened to him, but instead of disappearing, he was thrown across the room.”

“No offense, but why weren’t you killed as well?” Pete asked the Doctor.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s certainly the question of the hour, isn’t it?” He got up and took Rose’s place in pacing the room. With each step he seemed to move a little more easily. “There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps it had to do with my not being entirely human. Or maybe it’s because I’m not from this universe.”

“Petrol in a diesel engine?” Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. “Or it could be simply that I got lucky and it wasn’t particularly hungry. In any regard, we won’t know until we have more information.”

“Any recommendations?” Pete asked the Doctor, but Rose answered.

“Torchwood needs to analyze CCTV data from wherever there was a disappearance. We need to see if there are any other instances of disappearances that have been caught on camera and compare them to the Kate Lee footage. We should also widen our analysis to include other unexplained disappearances in the Greater London area to see if they could possibly be related. And we need to know what exactly Dr. Bradford was working on and whether or not it has anything to do with all this.”

Pete Tyler glanced from the Doctor to Rose and back again. The Doctor had stopped pacing when Rose had begun talking, and as she spoke he had begun to smile. By the time she had finished her recommendations, he was practically beaming at her.

“Rose Tyler, you are simply brilliant, you know that?”

Rose rolled her eyes but looked pleased at the unexpected compliment.

 

After she and the Doctor left Pete’s office, Rose turned to him.

“Now what?” she asked. 

“Now we go down into Pete’s workshop,” he said, heading down the hall. By the time they had reached the cellar, Rose noticed with relief that the Doctor seemed to be moving normally.

Once he was there, he quickly began to open cupboards.

“You said Pete went through an electronics phase?” he asked her over his shoulder.

“Yeah. The stuff’s over there,” she said, pointing him in the right direction.

Rose watched in amazement as he started pulling things off shelves and shoving them into various pockets. 

“Come on, Rose,” he said when he had finished. “We’re running out of time.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as they headed out of the workshop.

“Back to the substation, and quickly,” he answered as they headed back up the stairs. 

While Rose drove, out of the corner of her eye she could see the Doctor begin to pull things back out of his pockets and fit them together. 

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Building an alien detector,” he stated without looking up. He was trying to balance various pieces on his knees while working on them. She hit a pot hole and the car bounced, hard. Several small pieces fell off his lap onto the floor.

“Bugger,” he muttered, trying to reach them.

“Sorry,” Rose said. She tried to concentrate on driving.

By the time they pulled back into the car park of the substation, the Doctor had finished and had begun putting the spare pieces back into his pockets. He jumped out of the car and started toward the door almost before Rose had parked. She had to run to catch up with him.

“Allons-y, Rose,” he said, holding up the small box he had built and reading its display as he walked.

“What’s that thing supposed to do?” she asked as they entered the building.

“It’s an alien detector,” he answered without looking at her. “It’s supposed to detect aliens.”

They walked up and down the hallways, the Doctor holding up his invention and waving it at various things. The box didn’t seem to react.

“Are you sure it works?” she asked. “I mean, after all, you did just build it on your lap in a moving vehicle out of spare parts you found in my dad’s workshop.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said, but he looked at the box speculatively. He hit it once, hard, on the side with the heel of his hand. The box began to hum and he grinned at her. “It works,” he said happily.

The Doctor held the box toward her and the display reacted by lighting up and making a whirring sound. “See?” he said. “Alien. Species: human.”

Rose made a face at him. “Let’s see what it says about you,” she said. Grabbing the box from him, she held it up at him. It whirred, lit up, and made a buzzing noise. She frowned. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“It’s not getting a clear reading,” he said. He took it back from her and scanned himself. “Some human DNA, but not human.”

“Oh.”

Rose watched him as he returned to scanning the walls and the ceiling, and they headed back in the general direction of the control room. His alien detector didn’t seem to be detecting anything.

In the control room, Monica was sitting at one of the terminals, earbud headphones for an MP3 player in her ears. She was bouncing in time to the music she was listening to while she worked on a computer. When she spotted the Doctor and Rose enter the room, she turned her music off and took her earbuds out of her ears.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” the Doctor said. “We’ll be out of your way in a minute.” He began to scan the equipment with his alien detector.

“Listen, I don’t know who you two are or what you think you’re doing,” Monica said, “but you shouldn’t be here.”

He turned to her in surprise. “I’m the Doctor and this is Rose. We were here earlier, investigating some computer problems and a missing staff member. Don’t you remember?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Monica said. “I haven’t had any computer problems, and I’ve been alone here all day. And we don’t have a missing staff member.”

“What?” The Doctor held up his alien detector to scan her and she batted it away. “What about Kate Lee?”

Monica looked puzzled for a moment, and then her face cleared. “Kate? Kate quit. She finally got sick of our boss hassling her all the time. Personally, I think she should have reported him.” She paused, wondering why she was telling them all this. “I’m sorry but I really must ask you to leave or I’ll be forced to contact the authorities,” she said.

The Doctor looked like he was going to argue with her, but Rose grabbed his arm. “We were just going,” she said to Monica and pulled the Doctor out of the control room. 

“What was all that about?” the Doctor asked. As they walked down the hall, he continued to monitor his scanner.

“The containment team must have Ret-Conned her,” Rose told him. “Ret-Con wipes your recent memories. They may have implanted the thought that Kate Lee quit her job as well.” 

He stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to her. “That’s horrible,” he said.

Rose shrugged. “Standard operating procedure when dealing with an alien incursion,” she explained, not disagreeing with him.

“And Pete agrees with that?” he asked. He was slightly shocked. Pete Tyler didn’t strike him as someone who would go along with the wholesale wiping of people’s memories.

“Not entirely, but he does go along with it,” she answered. “You have to understand. The war with the Cybermen was horrible. Most of them had crossed into our universe before Canary Wharf, and those all were sucked into the void, but there were still enough of them left here to cause problems for years. People are still on edge. Even though the Cybermen weren’t aliens, people still associate them with aliens in their minds. News of aliens could cause widespread panic in the general public, and that would be much worse than a few lost memories. At least that’s the theory. I don’t like it either,” she added at seeing the looks he was giving her, “but this order comes from above Torchwood. Maybe even as high as number 10.” She was referencing the President’s office, which was at 10 Downing Street, the same location as the home of the Prime Minister in their home universe. “So, have you found anything?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We were too late. Whatever it was is already gone. I kinda expected that might happen, but you never know.”

During the drive back to the mansion the Doctor was thoughtful. After Canary Wharf, and particularly after saying goodbye to her for what he had thought was the last time, whenever he had thought of Rose in the parallel world, he had managed to convince himself she was safe and happy. Well, not entirely happy, but happy enough to be the stepdaughter of a millionaire with her family surrounding her and Mickey by her side. To hear her description of this world, and hear her describe the war so casually, was chilling.

And now there was an alien running amok making people disappear. Well, making other people disappear. Him, it had just thrown across a room. And he still didn’t know why. And not knowing something always troubled him.

 

When they arrived back at the mansion, after finding Jackie and Tony in the living room, he and Rose headed upstairs to talk privately. When they entered the Doctor’s room, he turned to her.

“Rose, I need to figure out exactly how human I am,” he said without preamble. “Physically. Exactly what changed and what stayed the same.”

Rose looked puzzled. “I thought you already knew that. I mean, when you told me you only had one heart, and you couldn’t regenerate, I thought you figured that out in the TARDIS.”

“We were a little busy at the time, Rose,” he reminded her. “Daleks, towing the Earth, dropping everyone off…”

“Well, if you didn’t scan yourself in the TARDIS, how did you know about the one heart and all?”

“Time Lord consciousness,” he replied, tapping his head. “Still there. I just looked into myself and saw it, but I really haven’t had a chance since then to do a more complete evaluation.” He took a deep breath. “Well, no better time than the present, I suppose.”

To Rose’s surprise, he dropped to sit cross legged on the floor, resting his wrists on his knees. He gestured with his head, and she sat down next to him. She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Meditation position. Learned it from the third Dalai Lama back in Tibet. Or was it the fourth? Course it wasn’t Tibet back then, but still, should help with the concentration.”

Rose watched as the Doctor closed his eyes and rolled his head back and forth for a moment. She heard his neck crack. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“Outside first. Ears, eyebrows, chin. Teeth,” she saw him run his tongue across them, “are the same, thank goodness. Always a bit weird when they change. Nose,” he said, wrinkling it a bit. “Shoulders, hips, knees. Now that’s weird.”

“What?”

“I’ve got four less freckles on my left foot, and three additional ones on my right, er, cheek.”

“I don’t see anything,” she said, looking at his face. He had enough freckles that she wondered if she’d even be able to tell.

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Can’t see them from where you are,” he said without opening his eyes. He cleared his throat.

“Oh,” she said, slightly embarrassed as it suddenly occurred to her just where those freckles were located.

“Voice, a little bit deeper, but I knew that.” He rolled his shoulders. “Oh wait. No, no, no. Yes! Thank goodness.”

“What is it?”

“Mole’s still there,” he grinned cheekily. “I really like that mole.”

She sighed. “Doctor…”

“Oh, right. Never mind. Now, internal organs. Only the one heart. No more respiratory bypass, gonna miss that. Liver, stomach, kidneys, okay.” His eyes shot open. “Everything else seems to be fine, far as I can tell. I’m going to need actual medical equipment to do a more detailed analysis. Tell me, Rose, is there anyone here with a medical background that you trust. I mean trust completely. With your life. Or mine, actually, when it comes right down to it.”

“Here?” Rose thought for a moment. “I don’t know anyone well enough here, not in medical, anyway.”

“What about Frank Collins?”

Rose shook her head. “I’ve only met him a few times. He’s really Dad’s friend. How important is this?”

“This could be vital,” he said seriously. “We need to know why that thing didn’t kill me.”

Slowly she grinned.

“What?” he asked.

“Pack a bag. We’ll need to stay overnight.”

“What?”

“Road trip.”

An hour later they were on the road to Cardiff.


	13. Chapter Twelve

As soon as Rose had suggested a road trip, a tension that the Doctor didn’t realize he had been feeling began to lift. Pete and Jackie Tyler had graciously opened their lives and their home to him without even being asked, and he was grateful, but he wasn’t used to living in a house, let alone in someone else’s house, and he certainly wasn’t used to being dependent on anyone else. Especially not after nearly nine hundred years of independence. Getting away from the mansion, however briefly, might help. It might also give him a chance to finally clear the air with Rose about, well, everything, he thought. Starting with the beach.

 

After a quick check of the TARDIS coral in Pete’s workshop, he got ready to go. At Rose’s suggestion he borrowed a small suitcase from Jackie, and at Jackie’s suggestion he packed for two nights. Tony was heartbroken to find the Doctor was leaving. Once he understood it was only to be for two nights, however, he insisted on helping the Doctor pack, informing him he helped his dad pack for business trips all the time. He brought him things he thought the Doctor should bring with: a quickly scribbled picture of the Doctor, Rose, and himself next to a tall, blue box on the moon, a Matchbox car to play with on the road, the bag of Jelly Babies Rose had purchased. The Doctor thanked him for everything, putting the drawing and the toy in his bag and the sweets (with a reminder to himself never to eat the green ones again) in his pocket. Tony was really more of a hindrance than a help, but the Doctor enjoyed the familiar manic energy of the little boy, it reminded him a bit of himself, and he didn’t mind the company.

 

Rose for her part took care of everything else. After a short conversation with Pete on the necessity of the trip for both personal and professional reasons, she threw clothes and her EPad in her own bag all the while making arrangements for the trip on her mobile. Finally, she met the Doctor in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table playing with Matchbox cars with Tony while her mum made dinner. To her surprise, and a squeal of delight from Tony, she saw him use sleight-of-hand to pull one out of her little brother’s left ear. She didn’t know he could do that.

 

“What about dinner?” Jackie asked. “Can’t you stay and just leave in the morning?”

 

“Mum, I really want to be there first thing in the morning. If we leave right now, we’ll still have daylight most of the way. We can get some dinner on the road.”

 

To her surprise, her mum grabbed her and hugged her tightly.

 

“Mum, you’re acting like we’ll be gone forever,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “We’re only going for two days.”

 

“Yeah, I know that’s what you said, but the first time you went off wi’ ‘im you were gone for a year.” Jackie jerked her head toward the Doctor.

 

On the first trip Rose had ever taken with the Doctor, he intended to have her gone only about twelve hours. And they really hadn’t been gone much longer than that. Well, not _that_ much longer. Only a few days, really. But, due to a minor navigational error, for Jackie twelve months had passed instead. The Doctor suddenly realized that no matter how long he lived, he’d never live that mistake down. Nor would he ever stop hearing about it. This was the second time Jackie had mentioned it today alone.  He opened his mouth to protest, but Rose beat him to it.

 

“We’re taking Dad’s car, not the TARDIS.”

 

“Still…” Jackie said, hugging her again. Finally Jackie let go and Tony gave Rose a tight hug. When he turned to hug the Doctor, the Doctor lifted him up and squeezed him.

 

“We’ll finish playing when Rose and I get back, okay?” he said to the small boy.

 

“ ‘Kay,” Tony answered as he was gently set down.

 

The Doctor cringed slightly as Jackie turned and pulled in a tight squeeze. “You take better care of yourself. You’re not indestructible anymore.”

 

“Are they always like that?” he asked Rose as they walked out to the garage carrying the luggage and the box of CCTV CDs they had taken from the substation.

 

“Like what?”

 

The Doctor gestured with his hand, struggling with the words. “You know, all … clingy and domestic?”

 

Rose bit back a smile. “Yeah, families are like that. Is Tony too much for you? He gets a little energetic.”

 

“Nah, Tony’s fine. But Jackie, on the other hand…”

 

She shrugged. “You know Mum’s always been a bit clingy where I’m concerned. Expect it comes from raising me all by herself. Looks like she’s getting that way with you, too. She must consider you part of the family.”

 

Rose saw his eyes widen at that, and then an expression crossed his face that she couldn’t interpret. Whatever it was, he quickly covered it up, replacing it with a familiar grin.

 

“So we’re not taking your car?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject. The Doctor tried but failed to hide the relief in his voice.

 

“Nope,” Rose replied, popping the “p”. She jerked her head and smiled mysteriously. “Come on.”

 

To the Doctor’s surprise, Rose passed both her tiny Mini Cooper and Pete’s big, black 4X4. “I thought you said we were taking Pete’s car.”

 

“Yes,” she said. “His _car_. His _baby_.” She motioned for him to follow her.

 

Blocked from view by the 4X4 was a streamlined convertible, top already down.

 

The Doctor’s jaw dropped as Rose grinned at him. “What d’ya think?”

 

“Oh, this is brilliant!” he said, running his hand along the side of the car as he walked around it. Rose took the box and bags and put them in the miniscule boot.

 

“It’s an Aston Martin DB9,” she said as they got in. “I thought Mum was going to have a coronary when she heard how much it cost. V12, 470 horsepower, can do up to 190 mph.” At a hopeful look from the Doctor, she shook her finger at him. “No. Absolutely not. We won’t be doing anything near that.”

 

“Rose, it’s blue,” he said with a grin.

 

“Yep.”

 

“TARDIS blue.”

 

“Uh huh. Pete let me pick the color. Course they call it Mariana Blue, but what do they know?” She shifted into gear and took off down the drive, gravel flying.

 

“Got enough head room?” she asked cheekily.

 

He looked up, seeing a bright blue, cloudless sky. A pair of zeppelins floated in the distance. “Meh,” he shrugged, and then grinned at her.

 

She drove down side streets and back roads, heading generally west, attempting to avoid London proper. Eventually she got on the M4 and they picked up speed, only slowing a bit around Heathrow. Once they passed the airport, the road opened up and she put on speed again.

 

The Doctor sat back, enjoying the fresh air and the countryside. With all the traveling he had done over the course of his long life, very little of it had been done by car and most of that had been during his third life. It struck him that if he couldn’t get the TARDIS coral to grow, he might be relegated to traveling by car most of the time. Not wanting to succumb to melancholy, he shoved that thought firmly out of his mind.

 

He was glad they were going to Cardiff to meet with Rose’s friend, he told himself. He needed to find out what was going on with this body. He had had many different bodies in the past and they had all had their quirks, but this one was so different. His hand still ached sometimes, he was still feeling slightly feverish, the one heart business took a lot to get used to, and there were other, even more embarrassing, symptoms that he was struggling with. But if you didn’t count the physical by Frank Collins, he really hadn’t had an exam by anyone other than himself, or Martha, in a very long time.

 

Thinking of Martha, he found he missed her. It had been nice to see her again after the whole Davros business. And Sarah Jane. And Jack and Mickey. He had never been one to go back, had spent lifetimes trying never to look back, but he’d always been able to go back if he wanted. It was odd to think that with a different universe, and possibly no TARDIS ever again, that he’d never have that opportunity again.

 

And of course he missed Donna. He would always miss Donna.

 

More melancholy.

 

He glanced over at Rose and his heart skipped a beat. Oh, she made it all worth it. To think that just a matter of days before he had been convinced he’d never see her again, and, miraculously, she was here. With him.  Whatever happened between them, even if nothing ever happened between them, at least they were together again.

 

She had put her hair up before they left, and he smiled as he noticed stray tendrils had come loose and were streaming behind her in the wind. Her hair looked like spun gold in the sunlight. He was struck as always by her incredible beauty.

 

She must have seen him staring at her out of the corner of her eye because she glanced at him and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

 

“Who taught you how to drive?” he asked, grabbing the first thing to pop into his mind.

 

“Dad did, when I first got here,” she answered. “Lessons never helped with Mum, though, and he eventually gave up. She can drive, but…” she shrugged.

 

“Let me know when your mother decides to take the car anywhere,” he responded. “I’ll make sure I’m not only off the roads but out of the country.”

 

Rose laughed.

 

“Pete said you did a lot of the final work on the dimension cannon,” he said.

 

“Yep,” she said with a grin. “Not bad for a former shop girl, huh?”

 

“It’s incredible, seriously,” he said. “But how is it possible?”

 

“Emergency Program One.”

 

“What?” Emergency Program One was a program he had set up on the TARDIS specifically to return Rose home in the event of something happening that was so catastrophic he did not expect to live through it. He had utilized it once, on the Game Station, and she had still managed to return to him.  He couldn’t immediately see the relevance.

 

“What was the last thing he said on the message that went along with Emergency Program One?” she asked him, and inwardly he winced. They _so_ needed to talk about who he really was.

 

“ _I_ told you to have a fantastic life, Rose,” he answered.

 

She got a funny look on her face, and he realized she got the same look almost every time he talked about his memories in the first person. Or at least his memories that had to do with her. _She doesn’t realize they are my memories as well_ , he thought, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to talk to her about it. _Add one more thing to the list_.

 

Rose realized this was too big a topic to discuss over the sounds of the wind in a convertible. There was a café up ahead that she had been to before and knew had good food, so she exited the motorway and pulled into the car park. She put the top up on the convertible, locked it and they went in. Once they had been seated and had ordered, she started again.

 

“I’m not the same person I used to be,” she began. “I’ve changed. It’s been almost seven years. I’ve been places and done things… things that I wouldn’t have been able to imagine even while I was traveling in the TARDIS. Good things, and, well, not so good things sometimes. Torchwood can be like that. And some of the things I’ve seen …” Her voice drifted off as she stared into space, momentarily lost in her memories. Colleagues who had died in front of her on routine missions. Mickey wounded in a Cyberman attack.

 

And two visions from her nightmares. A sheet covered body on a gurney near the Thames. Donna Noble dying in the street after sacrificing herself by stepping in front of a truck.

 

She shook her head slightly in an effort to get her mind off those memories.

 

“You know he told me to have a fantastic life,” she began again, not noticing he had to literally bite his lower lip in an effort not to correct her. He really didn’t want to interrupt her.

 

“So I tried,” she continued. “Turns out I learned a lot more than I realized traveling in the TARDIS. Pete pulled some strings and I was able to take the tests for my A levels right away, without doing the coursework. After Tony was born, I transferred out to Torchwood Three, and while I was working there I went to the Uni. I got my MPhys in theoretical physics and I was thinking of going on to Oxford when the stars started going out, so I went back to London to work on the dimension cannon.”

 

Rose thought the Doctor’s expression was priceless. He looked both incredibly surprised and incredibly proud of her at the same time. “Look at you,” he said happily, “being all brilliant. Of course I always knew you were. That’s just…”

 

“Fantastic?” she said with a small smile, and his face lit up even more.

 

“Fantastic,” he agreed, and she looked startled when the word came out with a slightly Northern accent.

 

“So what made you want to transfer out to Cardiff?” he asked curiously.

 

She didn’t respond. Instead she looked away, appearing slightly uncomfortable. As much as he wanted to know, he didn’t want to press her, wanting her to open up on her own. She still hadn’t said anything when the food arrived, so he didn’t really expect an explanation. When she finally answered, she chose her words carefully.

 

“I was having some problems with Mickey and Mum,” she said slowly. “I needed to get a little distance, so Dad suggested it.”

 

“What kind of problems?” he asked. Rose had always been very close to her mother. And Mickey. The problems had to be fairly serious if she had felt the need to move all the way to Wales.

 

She took a deep breath. “Mum was worried about me. She thought I was working too hard, not getting on with my life, kept trying to fix me up with people.” She rolled her eyes. “And Mick, well,” she sighed. “Mickey and his Gran were living in the mansion with us at that time and Mickey wanted the two of us to get back together. But that had been over forever. Some kinda nasty things were said. By both of us,” she hastily added, “and Cardiff just seemed to make sense at the time.”

 

At the look of concern on his face she continued, trying to make light of it. “It was all very stupid. Terribly _domestic_. They wanted me to give up, stop looking, stop trying to get back. And I didn’t want to. I swore I’d never give up, that I would get back. We all worked it out later, though, and Mickey ended up working on the dimension cannon project with me.” She shrugged. “Kinda ironic, if you think about it. I spent all that time trying to get back while Mickey kept telling me to give up, and now Mickey’s back there and I’m still here.”

 

The Doctor grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He opened his mouth to reassure her, to comfort her, to apologize, to say _something_ , but the waitress arrived with the check and the moment was lost.

 

The rest of the trip to Cardiff passed quickly. They talked about everything and nothing. Rose mentioned that for the first few weeks after moving to Cardiff she roomed with a coworker named Tosh while she was looking for her own place. And she was uncomfortable with the whole daughter of a millionaire role she had been thrust into. It was as alien to her upbringing on the estate as many of the planets she had visited while traveling in the TARDIS. When she had first arrived, there had been a flurry of publicity surrounding her, but that had died down quickly when the paparazzi found she was boring. She didn’t run around, didn’t go to clubs, didn’t have a parade of boyfriends, or girlfriends for that matter, and she was taking theoretical physics at the University. Boring. Boring doesn’t sell tabloids, and the press had quickly moved on to more interesting stories.

 

By the time they reached the Severn Bridge and crossed into Wales, the Doctor began relaying some stories of his travels with Martha and Donna. At first, Rose looked slightly uncomfortable, probably due to the questions she had with whether his memories were really his, he thought, but as he continued she relaxed, asking all the right questions and laughing in all the right spots. He avoided reminiscing about their joint memories. They still hadn’t talked about the beach, and he hoped that maybe after they eventually did she’d accept him for who he was. He also avoided talking about any of the rough trips, the difficult adventures, the problems he had initially had with Martha, the Family of Blood, visiting the Ood with Donna. The planet Midnight. Jenny. The Library and River Song. The Master and the year that never was. He wasn’t trying to keep them from her, honestly, he wasn’t, he told himself; he was more trying to keep them from himself. He still hadn’t fully processed those experiences, and he still wasn’t able to talk about them.

 

As he spoke, Rose glanced over at him curiously. He had said he and the full Time Lord Doctor had all the same thoughts and the same memories, and they obviously did, based on the story he had told her about Susan as well as the one he was currently telling her about Donna and Agatha Christie. She wondered how that worked. She had wondered when they had first gotten to the parallel world what he had thought of himself, and when they were looking at the stars last night he had told her he thought of himself as the Doctor. With having all the same thoughts and memories, he kinda was, sorta. But he wasn’t, not really. Like her dad. She may call Pete her dad, he treated her like a daughter and she treated him like he was her dad, but her real dad had died a long time ago, and they both knew it. And this Doctor, she told herself, no matter how much he was like the other one, wasn’t the same man as her Doctor. But they were so alike sometimes. It was enough to make her head, and heart, ache just thinking about it.

 

It was dark when Rose pulled into the car park of the hotel. The Plass Hotel was an upscale brick and glass building near the Millennium Centre that didn’t exist in Rose’s home universe. It towered over many of the other buildings in the area, and the luxurious concierge suites on the top floors had balconies, many of which afforded beautiful views of Roald Dahl Plass and the bay. It was owned by a subsidiary of Torchwood, Rose told him, and there was always a block of rooms set aside for Torchwood’s exclusive use.

 

In the lift, Rose noticed the Doctor lean against the wall, eyes closed. He was looking shaky and pale again, and she suddenly remembered the events at the substation which had led to the trip to Cardiff in the first place. When they entered the suite Rose had reserved, she gently pushed him toward one of the two bedrooms that led off of a main sitting area with a suggestion he get some sleep. It was probably a sign of his utter exhaustion that he didn’t argue with her, instead showering and getting into bed.

 

 

 

 

Waves of loneliness, and feelings of abandonment, crashed over him, threatening to drown him. _Everyone leaves_ , the Doctor’s mind echoed in despair, _everyone leaves_.

 

“Shhh, shhh.” Rose’s voice slowly pulled him back to consciousness. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was. _Oh, yes, the hotel in Cardiff._ Rose was sitting next to him, wearing an oversized vest and exercise shorts. He reached up and grabbed Rose’s bare arm. It felt cool under his burning skin and he felt the temperature of his hand slowly return to normal.

 

“Rose, what…” he tried to think as the waves of despair receded. He felt her hand softly caress his forehead. “What is it? What’s wrong?” 

 

“You had a nightmare.” In the moonlight spilling in from the sliding glass door that led to the balcony, he could see her looking at him, eyes wide with concern.

 

“A nightmare?” He sat up abruptly. A nightmare? Had he been having a nightmare? It hadn’t felt like any nightmare he had ever had. He couldn’t recall any specific images. Instead, he just remembered feeling wave upon wave of painful emotions.

 

“Well, I think it was a nightmare,” Rose answered. She took his hand and held it tightly.

 

Something just didn’t seem right about the situation. Well, any number of things seemed odd, but one in particular stuck out. “How did you know I was having a nightmare?”

 

“I heard you cry out.” She looked slightly uncomfortable. “You’ve been having them every night, so I’ve been leaving the bathroom door open a bit at home, you know, so I could hear you in case you needed me. I decided to leave my bedroom door open tonight, too, just in case.”

 

“Every night?” He was thunderstruck. Not necessarily over having nightmares, he’d been prone to them ever since the War, but he always knew when he’d had them. On the other hand, how do you know you always knew, he thought. “I’ve been having nightmares every night?”

 

She nodded. She scooted closer to him on the bed and he put his arm around her, lost in thought. He lay back down on the bed, pulling her down with him. She snuggled next to him. He pulled her closer to him as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, the Doctor opened his eyes and immediately shut them again. Bright sunlight was streaming through the sliding glass door leading to the balcony, hitting him full in the face. It was almost too bright even with his eyes closed, but the warmth where it touched his skin felt good. Slowly he realized he was being weighed down by something. He wasn’t quite restrained, but he couldn’t really move. Something warm was lying across his legs, his arm, his chest.

 

Despite the glare, the Doctor forced open his eyes and glanced down. He smiled when he saw blonde hair on his shoulder, an arm draped across his chest. Rose. She must have, they both must have, accidentally fallen asleep after his nightmare last night. And the weight across his legs must be her leg.

 

Trying not to wake her up, he placed a gentle kiss in her hair and inhaled the scent of her shampoo. Strawberry and vanilla and Rose, he thought, smiling again. Allowing himself to relax, he enjoyed the closeness albeit somewhat guiltily. And then couldn’t relax as he became aware of exactly where her leg was. Part of him was enjoying this a tiny bit too much. Well, perhaps a bit more than that. Weeelll, perhaps a lot more than that.

 

He froze as she shifted slightly in her sleep, tightening her grip on him and moving her leg upward an inch. Slowly he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

 

He didn’t understand it. He had held Rose before. And it wasn’t the first time in his memory that she had fallen asleep on him. And it certainly wasn’t the first time he had desired her. That had seemed like an almost constant condition while they had been traveling together. He’d been in love with her almost since the first time they’d met. He had begun to realize how he felt the first time they went to Cardiff, back when they met Charles Dickens. But this time he felt overwhelmed, almost out of control, heart racing…Oh. Heart. Singular.

 

His current part human biology was doing him in. Evidently he had a full measure of human hormones coursing through his body. As a Time Lord he had had much more control over his biological functions. He had known that humans had much less control over their physiology, but it wasn’t until now that he had truly experienced it. He didn’t count that stint he spent as a human when he and Martha had been hiding from the Family of Blood. He hadn’t remembered being anything but human then so hadn’t noticed any differences. Plus, back then he hadn’t woken up with a warm, half-naked Rose Tyler wrapped around him, either.

 

Rose shifted again, her leg moving against his groin, and he stifled a groan. Think North, think North, think North, he told himself, and attempted to think of anything above the waist rather than below. Slowly he became able to concentrate on the feel of her arm lying across his chest, her head on his shoulder, her chest moving against him as she breathed, the curve of her breast as it lay against his chest…

 

He froze again, eyes wide. That hadn’t helped. He tried not to think the sleeveless top she was wearing, fabric worn thin from many washings, armholes slightly too large, too loose and a bit revealing. Or the shorts, perfect for sleeping, but perhaps a wee too, well, short.

 

That hadn’t helped either. He needed to think of something boring, something mathematical, something as far from domestic as possible. Or he could wake her up. But then she’d get up and this exquisite torture would end. Plus, if she was to wake up now, there would be no way she could mistake the effect she had on him. He had no idea how she would feel about waking up next to, or actually half on top of, a randy, part human Time Lord. Uh, no. Not a good idea given the current state of their relationship.

 

He really needed to get himself under control before he did something stupid, like roll her onto her back and snog her awake and then shag her senseless. As absolutely brilliant as that would be… but no. He screwed up his face and concentrated on mentally reciting the digits of pi. He had reached the six hundred fifty-third decimal place, it was a 6, before everything returned to somewhat normal. He sighed. This being part human business was going to take a lot of work.

 

Rose inhaled deeply, reluctantly returning to consciousness. Where was she? Suddenly, she remembered that she was in Cardiff, and with a start, realized she was in the Doctor’s bed, half wrapped around him. Oh. That was awkward. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She should really get up. But, oh God, he smelled so good. Underneath the fragrances of soap and shampoo, he smelled almost exactly like she remembered _her_ Doctor did, of Time and distant planets, familiar and alien and _male_. And it had been the best night’s sleep she had had in weeks. Months, actually. And she didn’t want to remember how long it had been since she had been held like this. She snuggled closer, feeling a tiny bit guilty given the state of their relationship, and felt his arm tighten around her shoulders in response. So he was awake. Oops. She really should get up.

 

Rose found herself unable to stifle a yawn.

 

“Good morning,” said a voice from somewhere over her head.

 

“Mornin’.” She yawned again. “Sorry. I must have fallen asleep on you.”

 

“Not a problem,” he responded. “You’re welcome to fall asleep on me any time you like.”

 

She raised one eyebrow. Just what exactly was he suggesting? She wondered if he had even meant to say that last part out loud. When she heard him clear his throat, she guessed not.

 

Rose debated how to respond. “You sure ‘bout that? Because I have been informed that I snore. From a very reliable source.”

 

“Really?” To Rose’s ears, he sounded like he was trying not to sound jealous.

 

“Oh, yes. He tells me it all the time.” Her mouth twitched in amusement.

 

“So who is this mystery man?” he asked.

 

Yep, there was definitely an edge to his voice, she thought. Winding him up was just too easy. She decided to put him out of his misery.

 

“He’s blond, and blue-eyed, and very cute. But I wouldn’t call him a man, though. After all, Tony’s not even six.”

 

The Doctor sighed in relief as Rose burst out laughing. She poked him in the side and jumped out of bed, running from the room before he could retaliate.

 

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes later Rose was jogging through the streets of Cardiff.

 

Rose knew the streets of Cardiff well, having lived in the city for almost four years. She followed a familiar path, one that she knew would not only give her the workout she needed but also time to sort out her thoughts.

 

Rose had been having trouble sleeping for months. Years, even. The push to first, finish the dimension cannon, and second, search for the Doctor using it, had left her perpetually sleep deprived. Having a regular night’s sleep, even having time for a regular night’s sleep, more than once every week or two seemed like a fantasy. And then when she actually did sleep, she didn’t sleep well, dreaming of white walls, deserted beaches, and, most recently, a body covered by a sheet on a gurney. She ended up living on caffeine and painkillers, taking short naps on a cot in her office at Torchwood when everything just got to be too much and she was on the verge of collapse. The bad habits of months, as well as an increasing dependence on caffeine, had become so ingrained that her body wasn’t able to have a normal night’s sleep even when it was possible. Even since they had returned to the mansion, she still hadn’t had a good night’s sleep.

 

Waking up with the Doctor, in his bed and in his arms, had seen the end of her sleeping problem for the moment but had created an entirely different one. The sudden and powerful return of her libido had hit her like a ton of bricks. After so many years of practically living like a nun, she had almost forgotten she had one, but waking up in the arms of the Doctor, even if he wasn’t her Doctor, feeling his warmth, and, oh God, smelling him, had been so incredibly arousing she knew a simple cold shower wouldn’t suffice.

 

Hence the five mile run.

 

 

When she had fled the Doctor’s bedroom, she had hoped the teasing she had given him might have distracted him before he realized how she was feeling. She knew the Doctor had much keener senses than a human, that had been obvious by his ability to identify the ozone in the air at the substation, and she just hoped, she really, really hoped, that he hadn’t noticed the wave of arousal she had been feeling. And the pheromones she most certainly must have been giving off.  

 

Rose followed the curve of the waterfront for more than a mile before turning inland to follow a loop that would lead back to the hotel. The path she took avoided the busiest streets so she would minimize having to stop for traffic. Although it had been a couple of years since she had been back, she still felt she could have run the path with her eyes closed.

 

Over the years, Rose had gotten into the habit of working out a minimum of five days a week. Even when she had been doing dimensional jumps, she had made a point of visiting the gym for at least a half hour most days, wanting to be in top physical shape for whatever she might face. Because of circumstances, she had not worked out in over a week. She had been beginning to feel the lack of activity and so had decided to pack exercise clothes at the last minute, just in case. After pulling her hair up into a ponytail and pulling on her typical summer running outfit, vest over a sports bra, shorts, running shoes, she had called to the Doctor to let him know where she was going. There had been no response, so she had knocked on his bedroom door and called louder.

 

“Rose? Is everything alright?” he had answered, sounding worried.

 

Oh.

 

He had been in the shower.

 

He had come out of the room vigorously drying his hair with one towel, wearing another wrapped low around his hips. For a moment all she could see was a light smattering of dark hair across his chest, and a slightly thicker trail leading downward from his navel to disappear underneath the towel.

 

Oh. My.

 

She had forced her eyes upward and looked at his face. When she had seen poorly disguised amusement written all over it, she knew, she just knew, that he knew what she had been thinking.

 

“Sorry,” she had stammered, “I, uh, I just wanted to tell you … I’m, uh, gonna go for a run.” She gestured at the door. “I’ll, uh, be back in ‘bout an hour, maybe. Okay?” She had then turned and practically fled out the door.

 

As it closed behind her, she could have sworn she heard him say softly, “Huh. Still got it.”

 

Cocky git.

 

Gorgeous cocky git.

 

 

 

 

After Rose left, the Doctor returned to the ensuite to finish getting ready. As he looked in the mirror to shave, the Doctor found himself completely unable to wipe the grin off his face. So he had been right about what he had sensed earlier. Rose was attracted to him. Well, he always had been a bit pretty in this form, he thought, as he surveyed himself in the mirror. Thank goodness the meta-crisis hadn’t changed that.

 

His grin widened. Rose was attracted to him. He wasn’t naïve enough or foolish enough to think that this solved anything, but it was a start. It gave him hope. For the first time since that bloody beach, he had the teeniest bit of hope that things had the chance of really working out with Rose. She might be able to develop feelings for him. This him. And he quite liked hope. Always had. It was so … hopeful.

 

Ever since he had said the words, ever since he had answered the question that Rose posed on the beach, he had opened himself up, left himself more vulnerable than he had ever been since he left Gallifrey. He had spent a lifetime, a Gallifreyan lifetime, no, a Time Lord series of lifetimes, running: running from relationships, running from responsibilities, running from the consequences of decisions and choices he had made or had been forced to make because there was no one else to make them. A lifetime of running stopped with three words whispered on a desolate beach. And after the most perfect, most desired kiss of his long life, the hope that had begun when he had first seen Rose on that deserted burned out London street had been dashed with the sound of the TARDIS leaving.

 

And a realization that despite the words, despite the kiss, he wasn’t who she wanted.

 

But waking up to Rose Tyler in his arms, in his bed, surrounded by her warmth and her scent had been wonderful. Even if it had been an accident. But even more wonderful than that had been the look of attraction, desire even, he had seen on her face when she looked at him. And the incredibly tantalizing odor of the pheromones she had been giving off, he thought with a grin. Cos that, that was pure hope.

 

Because it echoed the desire he had for her.

 

Buoyed by his feelings, he tried to whistle. And found he couldn’t, because he couldn’t seem to manage to get his goofy grin off his face. Made shaving tough in some spots, too. So did the bouncing on his toes he was evidently doing. _Stop that_ , he told himself firmly, and tried to concentrate on the tasks at hand.

 

 

 

When Rose got back from her run she discovered the Doctor had ordered breakfast for them both.  It was laid out on the small table in the sitting area but he was nowhere to be found. Promising herself she’d eat when she was done, she quickly showered and changed into something appropriate for work. She might not be assigned to Torchwood Three anymore, but she still was working and as the step-daughter of Torchwood’s Director, she felt she had an example to set. She put on a salmon colored, cotton short sleeve top and cream colored trousers which were both lightweight enough to be dressy and sturdy enough to be practical. Her shoes, while not trainers, were comfortable enough and had enough support that she could run in them if she had to. Ever since traveling with the Doctor, her first consideration when buying shoes was always the ability to run in them. The only time she wore anything else was when she had to attend the occasional formal Vitex function. Pete was still Chairman of the Board at Vitex and she sometimes still needed to put in an appearance now and then. Rose put on a tiny bit of make up, quickly brushed her hair and she was ready.

 

They each exited their bedrooms at the same time. To Rose’s surprise, the Doctor wasn’t wearing his familiar blue pinstriped suit. Instead, he was wearing a black short sleeved tee with a pair of charcoal trousers. She wasn’t used to seeing him like this. She had only rarely seen the other Doctor after his regeneration in anything other than some form of a pinstriped suit, usually with a shirt and tie, occasionally with two shirts, often paired with his long, camel colored trench coat. With just the tee the Doctor looked almost undressed. It was such an unfamiliar, and attractive, look for him she had to force herself not to stare. The only thing familiar about what he was wearing were his new trainers, light grey this time. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that perhaps the five mile run and the cold shower she had taken hadn’t been enough. She was inwardly pleased to note he seemed to be staring as well. She shoved that thought, along with her traitorous libido, as far out of her mind as she could.

 

“Hello,” she said, falling into their familiar pattern.

 

“Hello,” he replied, an adorable lopsided grin on his face. Evidently there was something odd about her expression because he said, “What?”

 

“You, you changed.” To her own ears, Rose thought she sounded like an idiot.

 

“Well, I wasn’t going to wear just a towel to Torchwood.” He sounded slightly indignant.

 

Rose blinked, trying to ignore the image that popped into her mind. “No,” she said. “Just not used to seeing you without that blue suit.”

 

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” he asked, glancing down at himself. He had been feeling too warm to wear his suit.

 

“Nothing,” she responded. “It’s just … different.”

 

“Oh,” he said, slowly smiling. “Good different or bad different?”

 

Rose had a sense of déjà vu come over her. She had had a similar conversation with the other Doctor after he had regenerated. He was quoting himself, she thought, or was he quoting the other Doctor? She still wasn’t clear in her mind if they were truly his memories, or whether they were somehow borrowed.

 

“Just different,” she responded, deliberately quoting herself.

 

At hearing her response, his small smile turned into a wide grin.

 

They sat down to eat. He hadn’t been specific about what he wanted when he ordered, so the hotel had sent up a variety of fresh fruits, pastries, tea and coffee. Rose was a slower eater, so while he ate twice as much as she did, he was finished long before her. While she finished, he nursed a cup of tea and researched something on her tablet computer. Watching him reminded her that she really needed to get him a laptop and a mobile.

 

She glanced at the EPad in his hands. Evidently he had done something to it, because the images were flying across the screen faster than she could see them. Yep, he really needed his own computer before he broke hers. If he hadn’t already.

 

“What are you looking at?” she asked, wondering if they needed to buy two new computers.

 

“First, I looked at the data from the Hubble telescope. But it’s not the Hubble telescope here, it’s the Kinley for some reason, probably named after someone called Kinley I suppose, and it was put up by the Australians, not the Americans. Anyway, there’s something odd about the stars that disappeared. The ones that are still gone, I mean. There’s something familiar about them that I just can’t remember.” He sighed. “It’ll come to me eventually.”

 

“Then, I checked your email,” he said.

 

“What?” she said in outrage, but not surprise, because no version of the Doctor she knew had ever gotten the hang of personal boundaries where she was concerned.

 

“You mostly had junk,” he continued as if she hadn’t responded. “You know you can filter that, I can set it up for you if you like. Pete sent a link to the London Times I’ll check in a minute. And there’s a person named Robert who wants to take you out to dinner on Friday. I wrote him back and told him that you weren’t interested, you were now living with a devastatingly handsome man with a jealous streak and that if he valued his health he should bugger off.”

 

“Did you really?” she said in horrified fascination.

 

“Not actually, no,” he admitted.

 

“Well, you can if you want,” she said, laughing. “I’ve been trying to give Robert the brush off for months. Mum wanted to fix me up with him and he just doesn’t want to take no for an answer.”

 

“Okay, I will,” he grinned, “just as soon as I’m done with this. Right now, I’m scanning a brief history of the planet. You wouldn’t believe the number of differences there are between this planet and your home world. I don’t want to slip up accidentally in conversation and say something about Prince William, say, just to find out he doesn’t exist.”

 

She raised one eyebrow. “Are you likely to talk about the royal family? Because they don’t live here anymore. They all emigrated to America.”

 

“You see, that’s just it. I didn’t know that. I don’t want to sound like an idiot.”

 

“Yeah, cos that never happens,” she teased.

 

He shot her a dark look and tried not to smile. Returning to the computer, he touched the screen and more images zoomed past.

 

“And now, now I’m looking at today’s news reports,” he continued. “Ooo, that’s not good.” He grimaced.

 

“What is it?”

 

“There’ve been more power outages, and more people are missing,” he said, looking at her grimly. “We’ve got to get this sorted.”

 


	15. Chapter Fourteen

“Now before we go in, I’ve got to warn you about Owen Harper. I want you to promise me that no matter what he says, you won’t let him get to you.”

 

They had just exited the front entrance of the hotel and were making their way across Roald Dahl Plass toward the bay and the information office which held the employee entrance to the Hub. The Doctor carried the box of CCTV CDs from the Griffith St. substation and she had her EPad. At hearing her comment, he raised one eyebrow.

 

“The fact that you are saying this to me makes me think you think he will say something.”

 

“Knowing Owen,” she said, nodding, “there’s a fair likelihood, yeah.”

 

“How likely?” he asked suspiciously.

 

Rose shrugged. “I’d say a better than ninety-nine percent chance?”

 

“And this is the man you want to examine me?” the Doctor said in disbelief.

 

Rose grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop and looking up at him. “There isn’t anyone better. He’s a brilliant doctor and he knows more about comparative alien anatomy and physiology than anyone else on the planet, with the exception of you. I trust him with my life. I have trusted him with my life, and he’s saved it on more than one occasion. I even consider him a friend, sort of. After a fashion. He just, well, sometimes he just can be a complete arse. Sometimes he’s beyond a complete arse.”

 

“That’s impossible. No one can be beyond a complete anything.”

 

“You haven’t met Owen yet,” she said darkly.

 

Rose led the way down a flight of stairs, along a small boardwalk, and to a nondescript brown door surrounded by Travel Cardiff posters. Pulling it open, she and the Doctor entered a small room that appeared to be a travel office. It was filled with display cases containing brochures of local tourist attractions and maps of Cardiff and the surrounding area. The Doctor looked questioningly at Rose.

 

“May I help you, sir?” The immaculately dressed young man behind the information desk looked vaguely familiar to the Doctor. With a rush, he realized he had seen the man’s parallel version on a screen in the TARDIS when they were towing the Earth back after the events on the Crucible.

 

“Nope, it’s just us.” Rose answered, grinning. “Hi, Ianto.”

 

“Rose!” Ianto said in obvious, but restrained, delight. She headed around the desk to give him a hug.

 

“Let us in, okay? And you come too. We’ll do introductions in there.”

 

Ianto flipped a switch behind the desk. The door, looking like nothing as much as a giant gear set in the wall, rolled to one side, and Rose led the Doctor through a passage that descended to another door, and then into the Hub.

 

“Blimey.” The Doctor looked around in amazement. From what he could tell, the Hub, as it was called, looked to have been built in a disused nineteenth century sewer junction. Looking up, he saw that the center of the main room stretched so far upward it resembled a huge cavern. Large flat stones had been set in the floor, forming paths to various workstations and doorways. Around the perimeter of the space metallic stairways led to a variety of balconies and offices. Large potted plants had been placed in strategic spots near the path, creating an atmosphere of an atrium. Against the far wall someone had placed a worn sofa, which was currently being used to store stacks of files. “You’d never know this was down here. I wonder if the other one’s the same.” He gestured toward a tall glowing column which stretched from the floor upwards. “Rift manipulator?” he guessed.

 

Rose nodded. She looked around and saw two very familiar faces on one of the balconies.

 

“Gwen, Tosh,” she called, her face breaking into a wide grin. Two women looked down and spotted her.

 

“Rose!” someone squealed.

 

The Doctor stood back and watched as the two women, both with long dark hair, one of Asian descent, the other quite visibly pregnant, ran down the stairs from a balcony to where they were standing. The pregnant one, Gwen he assumed, looked almost identical to a woman he and Rose had met in Cardiff in 1860 as well as being the parallel version of a woman who had been on the screen in the TARDIS with the parallel Ianto. The other woman also looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t place her. Perhaps he had met her parallel version at some point.

 

Once the women had reached them, they each fairly tackled Rose in turns. Ianto quietly walked up and stood next to the Doctor.

 

After a great deal of hugging and giggling, Rose broke apart and began introductions.

 

“Everybody, this is the Doctor. He’s going by Doctor John Smith here. Doctor, this is Toshiko Sato, Gwen Williams, and Ianto Jones.” Each stepped forward in turn and shook the Doctor’s hand as he shifted the box of CDs to one arm. “Now we’re here mostly to see Owen, but we need all of your help reviewing these.”

 

“What are they?” asked Ianto as he took the box from the Doctor.

 

“CCTV backups from an electrical substation in London,” Rose answered. “They all need to be reviewed, but pay close attention to anything from the last three days.”

 

Gwen made a face. She had been a policewoman in Cardiff for a number of years before joining Torchwood and had had to review CCTV many times in the past. It was incredibly tedious work.

 

“It won’t be so bad,” Tosh interjected when she saw Gwen’s reaction. “If you give me the parameters of what you might be looking for, I can write an algorithm which allows the computer to do most of the work.”

 

“And she can, too. She’s brilliant,” Rose said to the Doctor. She turned back to Tosh. “Where’s Owen?”

 

“Probably down in autopsy.” Gwen was the one who answered. The Doctor noticed she had a slight lilt to her voice. Definitely a native of Wales, he thought. But then Gwen’s parallel was from Cardiff, so this Gwen probably was as well.

 

“I’ll get him,” she continued.  “You talk to Tosh.”

 

While Gwen left in search of Owen, Rose and the Doctor quickly outlined what they were looking for from the security camera records. By the time they were finished, Gwen had returned with a cross looking man in his early thirties. He wore a white lab coat over a blue Oxford shirt and jeans.

 

“So is this him?” said the man to Rose without preamble, looking the Doctor over. “All that time and money and all that distance across universes and for what? To get your boyfriend back? You know, Tyler, if you wanted a good shag all you had to do is call me.”

 

The Doctor’s eyes flashed and his entire body tensed up involuntarily. He was seized by an almost overwhelming desire to shove the smaller man against the wall and punch him. Repeatedly. With difficulty, he managed to restrain himself, and felt grateful that Rose had warned him about Harper earlier. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stop himself otherwise.

 

All the Torchwood employees froze. They had all been on the receiving end of his insolence at one point or another and, for the most part, they had learned to ignore him. But the Doctor didn’t know him, and they knew that Owen, whether he was aware of it or not, had crossed a line with his comments to Rose. Toshiko Sato swallowed nervously, embarrassed by Harper’s comments. Gwen Williams glanced quickly from the Doctor to Harper and back, her policewoman instincts kicking her awareness for trouble into high gear. Ianto Jones, for his part, was just hoping the Doctor would flatten Owen. It was no secret he was not Harper’s greatest fan having received the brunt of Torchwood’s medical officer’s insults since transferring to Cardiff. Secretly, he would have paid money to see Rose’s Doctor kick Harper’s arse, and currently the man seemed both willing and able to do so.

 

Rose grabbed the Doctor’s arm and squeezed it in warning. He glanced at her. To his surprise, she didn’t look the least bit upset. Instead, she shot him a tiny, mischievous smile and winked at him. Reminding himself that Rose had called Harper a friend, sort of, he tamped down his anger and forced himself to relax.

 

Rose then turned to Torchwood’s resident doctor. Stepping forward, she leaned toward him and whispered in his ear. Harper quickly glanced at the Doctor, wide eyed, and then, just as quickly, glanced away. As she continued to whisper in his ear, his jaw tightened and he flushed, first red and then almost purple. Finally Rose stepped back and smiled sweetly at him.

 

“Owen, I’d like you to meet Doctor John Noble Smith. Doctor, I’d like you to meet Doctor Owen Harper. Owen,” she said, jabbing her finger at him, “you be nice. Doctor, if he isn’t, you have my permission to shove your trainers up his arse. If you do, I’ll buy you a new pair.”

 

Swallowing nervously, the smaller man stepped forward, shoving out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Doctor.” He dropped it again when it became obvious the Doctor wouldn’t take it.

 

“Harper.” The Doctor’s response could have been a greeting or a warning.

 

Shoving her elbow in his side, Rose made a face at him. “You be good, too.”

 

“Doctor, this way if you please,” Harper said. With a nervous glance at Rose, he headed back down the stairs.

 

The Doctor watched as Tosh led Rose up to her workstation on the balcony and then followed Torchwood’s doctor down a short flight of stairs that curved around a tiled, oval room.

 

The Doctor looked around the room. Two staircases curved around the edge of the room, leading to a landing which was obviously designed to double as an observation post. A large computer monitor hung on the wall, and he saw a set of shelves holding various pieces of medical equipment. A trolley held more medical instruments. He raised his eyebrows as he realized not all were of human origin.

 

“Well, here we are.” Harper said, with a gesture that encompassed the tiny area. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

 

Owen Harper surreptitiously glanced at the man now wandering through his examination room, casually picking up items and examining them. Having worked with Rose for years, he had heard stories of the Doctor, the brilliant, dangerous alien who sometimes appeared to have godlike powers, and when she had whispered in his ear, she had, among other things, reminded him of one of the names the Doctor had been called. The Oncoming Storm. He looked so ordinary, tall and thin with spiky brown hair and sideburns. A strong wind could probably blow him over. The only thing remarkable about him was his eyes, deep brown and looking far older than the rest of him.

 

 

“Before we begin, I want to say I’m sorry if I offended you by what I said to Tyler. She and I go way back and I have the utmost respect for her.”

 

“You have a funny way of showing it,” the Doctor responded coldly. He paused for a moment, and when he continued, his voice was low and dangerous. “Might I suggest you do a better job of it from now on. Because I don’t like it when people don’t show her respect. People who don’t show her respect tend to regret it. Do you understand?” He looked at Torchwood’s doctor meaningfully. “And you should be apologizing to her, not to me,” he added.

 

Owen Harper swallowed convulsively. For a moment, there was something in the look the Doctor gave him as well as the tone in his voice that Owen found completely and utterly frightening, far beyond the implied threats contained in his words. Terrifying actually, if he had thought about it, on a completely instinctive level, but for the moment all rational thought had fled.

 

But then the Doctor sighed and the moment was over.

 

“But she seems to have a great deal of respect for you as well,” the Doctor said grudgingly. He noticed Harper looked surprised at the revelation Rose Tyler respected him.

 

“Mind you, she did say you were beyond a complete arse,” the Doctor added.

 

Harper snorted. “That would not be an inaccurate assessment, nor would she be the first one to make it.”

 

“Can I ask what she said to you?”

 

“Well, you can ask,” Harper responded, “but I won’t tell you. She told me not to say anything to anyone. Including you. And as intimidating as I now find you, and I find you extremely intimidating, that’s nothing compared to how totally frightening Rose Tyler can be.”

 

The Doctor scowled, and then, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere, he grinned manically. “Quite right, too. Rose scares me as well. In fact, there was a time on Nimbus III, we were there for the festival, when Rose …” He flushed and cleared his throat. “Um, well, you probably aren’t interested in that story.”

 

Owen stared at him wide-eyed, wishing the Doctor would continue.

 

“Anyway,” the Doctor continued, rubbing the back of his neck, “Rose, as frightening as she can be, is nothing compared to her mother. Have you met Jackie? Terrifying woman. She can slap a person into next week,” he said, unconsciously rubbing his face. “Second time I met her she slapped me. First time anyone’s mother ever slapped me. Couldn’t believe it.”

 

Owen couldn’t help himself. “Why’d she slap you?” he asked.

 

“Brought Rose back late from what turned out to be our first date. Didn’t realize it at the time, of course. I thought we’d only been gone a matter of hours. Well, perhaps a _bit_ longer than that, but not by much. Turned out we were late by a year. Also didn’t realize it was a date at the time, either. Didn’t figure _that_ out ‘til much later.”

 

As Owen Harper tried to reconcile the man in front of him with the description of the man Rose had whispered into his ear, and the tiny glimpse of him he had seen earlier, he found he was developing a headache.

 

Putting a stethoscope around his neck, Harper moved the medical trolley closer to the examination table and gestured at the table in the center of the room. The Doctor sat down on it, legs dangling off the floor. Part of him had been hoping that Rose would be there during the examination, but he realized that Torchwood Agent Rose Tyler had work to do on the CCTV footage. Plus, he suspected that asking her to come with might have made him appear a bit clingy.

 

“Be that as it may,” Torchwood’s doctor said, deliberately trying to get back on topic, “I’ve been told that the reason you’re here is because you need a medical examination. And it must be a secret, otherwise Tyler wouldn’t have brought you all the way out here. What type of examination do you need?”

 

“I need a complete work up.” The Doctor was instantly all business. “Something … happened and my body is … different than it used to be. I need to know exactly how different.”

 

“Down to a cellular level?”

 

“Deeper,” the Doctor responded. “I’m also going to need a genetic analysis.”

 

Harper’s eyes narrowed. “We can do all that, but some of the results will take a little time. But with nothing to compare it to…”

 

“Don’t worry about that. I can do the analysis myself. I just don’t have the equipment to run the tests.”

 

Harper looked at him, considering. “I’m going to need to do a general exam, then I’ll have to take some tissue samples. A mouth swab usually is sufficient for that.”

 

“Not in this case,” the Doctor answered. “We’ll also need to do a genetic comparison with blood and tissue samples from my right hand. The good news is you have some equipment here that should make short work of that. Plus, your portable scanner here should help me identify any internal changes I haven’t noticed.”

 

“I have a portable CT scanner?” Owen glanced sharply at the medical trolley. There were a number of pieces of equipment on it that had come up through the Rift that he was still examining to see what they did.

 

“It’s actually closer to an advanced ultrasound device, but yeah,” the Doctor grinned.

 

Torchwood’s Doctor shook his head. “Well, okay then.” Harper smiled, his first genuine smile in a very long time. “Take off your shirt and let’s get started.”

 

 

 

Rose and Tosh sat down near Tosh’s workstation while Owen led the Doctor down to the autopsy room. Tosh began typing the parameters to the computer algorithm she was setting up to search the CCTV recordings.  Rose craned her neck to see if she’d be able to see down into the autopsy room from where she sat. Nope. Disappointed, she turned back to her friend and former roommate.

 

“What on Earth did you say to Owen?” Tosh asked. “I’ve never seen him react in quite that way before.”

 

Rose shook her head. “I’m sorry, Tosh. I can’t tell you. I said some things about the Doctor to Owen that I probably shouldn’t have.” She laughed at the memory of Owen’s reaction. “I also insulted Owen in a very private, personal way. I don’t think he’ll be pulling that kind of crap with me anymore. At least not around the Doctor.”

 

Tosh was disappointed that Rose wouldn’t tell her what she said, but was philosophical about it. Anything to get Owen to be a bit less self-destructive.

 

“Speaking of the Doctor,” Tosh said, grinning at her friend. “You found him. I see why you like him. He’s a bit of alright.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively while she continued to type.

 

Rose smiled a little wistfully. “Yeah, he is, isn’t he?”

 

“So, you and him…”

 

“Uh, no,” Rose responded. She glanced back toward autopsy.

 

“Why not?” Tosh demanded. She stopped typing and turned to her former roommate.

 

“ ‘S complicated,” Rose sighed.

 

“Oh.” Tosh knew complicated. She had been in love with Owen for years, and he had no idea. The worst part was that she suspected that he wouldn’t have cared even if he had known. “How complicated?”

 

“ _Really_ complicated.” Rose thought about getting up and moving to a location so she could see down into the autopsy room, but she decided it would make her look too clingy.

 

“Up to midnight with a bottle of wine complicated?” Tosh was remembering a particular evening when Rose had spent the entire evening listening to Tosh talk about Owen.

 

“More like up ‘til 2, three bottles of wine complicated.”

 

Tosh raised one eyebrow. “That bad?”

 

“Yeah.” Rose sighed.

 

“Oh, I see,” Tosh said, knowing she didn’t. She leaned back on her chair and crossed her arms, looking at her friend. “Well, you know what I’d do.”

 

“What?”

 

“Un-complicate it.”

 

Rose snorted. “Really. Then why haven’t you un-complicated things with Owen yet?”

 

“That is different,” Tosh insisted.  “Owen doesn’t even know I exist. It’s obvious that your Doctor is extremely aware of your existence.”

 

“He’s not _my_ Doctor.”

 

Tosh smirked. “Why do I get the feeling that he would be if you just let him?”

 

Rose stood up. “I’m going to go check on them,” she said, jerking her head toward the autopsy room.

 

Tosh smiled at her friend. “Rose,” she said, “just think about it.”

 

 

 

The Doctor described the symptoms he had been having, in particular the sensation of being constantly feverish, to Owen as the younger man examined him.

 

“Have any of the symptoms become worse since the attack?” Harper was using an ophthalmoscope to examine the Doctor’s eyes.

 

“No, not that I’ve noticed.”

 

“Well, the good news is,” Harper said as he put away that medical instrument and picked up a syringe, “you seem to be in good health. A bit thin, but I’m guessing that’s normal for you. Now I’m going to draw a blood sample, expect a pinch.” After taking the sample, he replaced the syringe with a wad of cotton. “Put lots of pressure on that for a bit.”

 

“What’s the bad news?” he asked as Harper put a plaster on his arm.

 

“Well, I have absolutely no idea what is causing the pain in your hand. But the sense of being feverish should go away as your body gets used to having a new normal temperature. The rest of it, the sleepiness, the mood swings, the digestion issues, and the rest, they all sound pretty normal for a human. You may just have to get used to it. You’ll also have to remember to eat healthy foods regularly, lay off the sweets a bit, and get regular exercise.”

 

“I suppose you tell that to all your patients,” the Doctor said wryly, pulling on his t-shirt.

 

“Actually, no.” Harper waved his hand in a circle. “See this? Autopsy room. Most of my patients are dead.”

 

“How’s it going down here?” Rose asked from the landing.

 

“Rose,” the Doctor said, his face breaking into a wide grin. “You’re just in time. After the tissue samples, we’re going to do a brain scan.”

 

“Yeah, Tyler, get down here. I could use your help. We’re gonna do a scan with that thing that came through the Rift back when you were working here.”

 

“Is it safe?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” the Doctor answered. “It’s not even alien tech. Just a piece of medical equipment from your own 27th century.”

 

“Your Doctor showed me how to calibrate it while you were wasting time up there gossiping with Tosh,” Owen said, swabbing the Doctor’s mouth for a tissue sample. He then took tissue and blood samples from the Doctor’s right hand. “I’m going to need you, Tyler, to monitor the computer while I scan your boyfriend here. Make sure I don’t miss anything. And you,” he addressed the Doctor now, “need to lie back and remain perfectly still. Don’t want to get a false reading on anything. We could end up thinking you’ve got two hearts or something.”

 

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Rose, who shrugged back, puzzled.

 

Harper turned on the scanner. Starting at the Doctor’s toes, he waved it slowly over the Doctor’s body. Images began to appear on the monitor on the wall behind him. Finally, he was finished and the Doctor jumped up to examine the images being displayed. He pulled out his glasses and peered at the screen.

 

For a few moments he just tried to make sense of the images in front of him. All of his internal organs seemed to be present, but they seemed to more resemble their human counterparts in size, shape, and location than they did their Time Lord equivalents. Actually, as he thought about it, they almost appeared early Gallifreyan. Before Rassilon had begun the huge genetics projects that had resulted in the widespread genetic engineering of the Time Lords through a process called looming, Gallifreyans had closely resembled humans. Or humans resembled early Gallifreyans, he corrected himself.

 

“Can we enlarge my head?” he asked, pointing at the corresponding part on the monitor.

 

“Don’t you think your head is big enough as it is?” Rose asked cheekily as she changed the focus of the image.

 

The Doctor shot her a look as she laughed.

 

Dr. Harper went to join the Doctor next to the monitor. The image of the Doctor’s brain was slowly rotating, displaying it in near 3D.

 

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Owen said, staring at the screen.

 

Rose crossed the room to join them.

 

“And you never will again. That, Owen Harper, is a Time Lord brain. Only one in this universe. And thankfully, it appears to be largely intact. If it had as many changes as my other systems, I wouldn’t be standing here.”

 

Rose glanced sharply at him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

 

“Time Lord consciousness, Time Lord brain. Can’t have one without the other.”

 

“There appears to be double the size of gray matter than for a human,” Owen said. “And the hippocampus is bigger as well.”

 

“The cerebral cortex is actually more than triple that of humans,” the Doctor corrected.

 

“So whenever you talk about your gigantic Time Lord brain, you really aren’t kidding.” Rose stared at the screen.

 

The Doctor smirked at her.

 

“What’s that?” Owen pointed out an unfamiliar structure that lay next to the hippocampus. It was a crescent shaped bundle of nerves, with protuberances that extended to all the other parts of his brain.

 

“Now that, that is interesting,” the Doctor grinned, pointing at the screen. “That is the hippotemporis, and that is the center of my Time Sense. That structure doesn’t develop fully until a child views the Untempered Schism at the age of eight. It starts out roughly the size and shape of a pea, but when it’s developed, it looks like that. It connects to and interacts with every other portion of my brain.”

 

Rose wanted to ask him what the Untempered Schism was, but Owen was pointing something else out.

 

“You have an extra lobe in your brain,” he said in amazement.

 

“Most bodily functions are controlled in that section of the brain. It allows for the rest of the brain to be used for higher functions. And that,” the Doctor said, pointing to a small, oval structure near the amygdala, “is the animamedia. Roughly translates to the center of the soul. It’s the center of a Time Lord’s consciousness. All thinking processes, all memories, all bodily functions are located elsewhere, but everything about the inner man, the person who survives regeneration, is located there.”

 

The Doctor stared at the image. The animamedia, which was not present in humans, looked on the screen like a peeled hardboiled egg. As the image on the screen slowly rotated, the other side of the animamedia came into view. Instead of a smooth surface, he could see that there was a tiny lesion, almost completely healed, barely visible along the other side of the egg like structure.

 

The Doctor froze for a second, and then glanced at Rose and Owen. It appeared that neither of them had noticed anything unusual.

 

“Owen,” the Doctor finally managed to say, “would you please pause and enlarge this image?”

 

Harper stabbed at the controls and pressed a few buttons. The image on the screen stopped rotating and zoomed.

 

The Doctor took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Seeing the damaged animamedia on the screen was a confirmation he never thought he would have. He needed to tell Rose what it meant.

 

“You see that, Rose?” he said softly, pointing out the tiny tear. “That was as a result of the meta-crisis. In fact, you could even say that that caused the meta-crisis. You see, when the regeneration energy…”  

 

The Doctor was interrupted by Ianto calling down the stairs. “Pizza’s here.”

 

The Doctor groaned in frustration. Would he ever be able to talk to her about the meta-crisis without being interrupted?

 

“Did you order enough for all of us?” Rose called back.

 

“Yes,” he answered, “Assuming Gwen only eats for two instead of for twelve.”

 

“Oi!” yelled Gwen from somewhere up above. “I heard that.”

 

“You were meant to,” Ianto responded, looking up in the direction of her voice.

 

“We’ll finish this up later,” said Owen. “I don’t know about you but I’m starved.”

 


	16. Chapter Fifteen

The Doctor and Rose entered the glass enclosed conference room. A half-dozen pizzas of various sizes and types were laid along the center of the table. Rose poured him a cup of tea and grabbed a bottled water from a side table for herself. Ianto handed the Doctor a plate.

“Hey, where’s my Hawaiian?” Gwen wanted to know.

Ianto pointed to the end of the table and shuddered.

“What can I say? The baby likes pineapple,” she said, patting her stomach.

Everyone sat around the table to eat. The Doctor watched as Rose got caught up on local gossip. In the past day he had seen a completely separate side of Rose he had never seen before. She had told him on the drive to Cardiff that she had changed, but that term was misleading. It was more accurate to say she had grown, become her own person, independent of him and independent of her mother. Here in Cardiff in particular she was in her element, confident, capable, completely secure in herself. And it was breathtaking.

The Doctor took a sip of his tea, and his eyes widened in appreciation.

“Good, isn’t it?” Tosh said to him. “Ianto made it. If you like that, you should try his coffee sometime. I think he must have been a barista in another life.”

“So what does Rhys think about the baby,” Rose asked Gwen.

“Oh, you know men,” she answered with a grin. “He’s terrified. Excited, but terrified.”

The Doctor looked on in amusement as the women laughed and Owen rolled his eyes.

As he watched the dynamics between the Torchwood Three employees, something niggled in the back of his mind, just slightly beyond his awareness. For the first time in this body, he extended his Time Sense and thankfully, despite the changes in his body due to the meta-crisis, it worked. Something was odd about Toshiko and Owen. Involuntarily, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated on seeing the swirling timelines around those two. As was typical, thousands of possible timelines stretched in front of them formed by decisions they had yet to make. In more than a few of them, their timelines joined, indicating a possible relationship developing between them in the future. What wasn’t typical, however, was that their primary timelines, the ones most clearly visible for each of them, had ended almost a year earlier. He had never met anyone whose primary timeline had ended, and yet now he had met two. He tucked the thought into the back of his mind, to examine later in more detail, and tried to concentrate on the conversation around him.

“So are there any rumors in London who’s going to be the new boss here?” Gwen asked Rose. “It’s been months since Mickey left to work with you on the dimension cannon, and I only agreed to take over temporarily. I’m already seven months gone. I can’t be chasing weevils with a pram.”

Rose shook her head. “I have no idea. Dad hasn’t mentioned anything to me.”

“Mickey?” the Doctor asked Rose. “The same Mickey?”

“Yep,” Rose grinned, popping the “p”. “Mickey was the head of Torchwood Three for what, a year I guess? He left to help me during the final stages of it.”

“Whoever they get will be right back out,” Owen said. “Nobody ever lasts here more than a year, not in that job.”

“Now that I think of it, you’re right,” Tosh said. 

“There’s been someone new every year since I’ve been here, “and I’ve been here for almost five years,” Ianto added.

After they finished lunch, Rose and the Doctor followed Owen back down to autopsy. Rose sat on the examination table and watched while Owen and the Doctor ran a series of tests on the Doctor’s blood and tissue samples. Seeing Rose on the table reminded the Doctor of the dimension cannon and his conversation with Pete.

“Rose,” the Doctor said, “I think while we’re here you ought to let Owen examine you.”

Owen’s eyebrows shot up.

“I beg your pardon?” Rose asked. She couldn’t have heard right. He couldn’t possibly just have said what she thought he said. When he repeated his suggestion, and she heard Owen’s rude snicker in the background, she stared at him in horrified curiosity.

“Okay, first, no,” she said, shooting a dirty look at Harper. “And second, I think that’d have to be a no as well. More of a hell no. And third… why?”

As the Doctor described, in detail, the extensive physical damage the dimension cannon could do, Rose began to look worried, and even Owen Harper became somber. When he was finished, Rose sighed.

“Alright,” she said to the Doctor. 

“Would you rather I do the exam?” the Doctor asked.

 _Honestly_ , Rose thought, _yes_. Although she had told the Doctor not to be upset by anything Owen said, and although she had handled Owen, she still wasn’t thrilled with him today. He had more than lived up to his reputation as a complete arse. But she knew the Doctor was going to be busy analyzing data and doing her exam would take time away from that. “No, this is fine,” she said.

“But I’m not taking my shirt off for you.” This was directed at Torchwood’s doctor, accompanied by a glare and a finger shake.

With difficulty, Owen bit off a reply. 

“And not my trousers, neither!” She knew him too well.

“I am a professional,” Harper said with mock-offense. “Such a thought didn’t even occur to me.”

Rose let out a distinctly unladylike snort and rolled her eyes.

“Be that as it may,” the Doctor interrupted, “a scan and a chromosomal profile might be sufficient. If anything looks hinky, we can do further testing.”

“Hinky?” Rose asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah,” the Doctor shuddered. “Not saying that again.”

While Owen Harper completed Rose’s medical exam, clothing on, the Doctor worked on the tissue sample analyses. After Rose was done, she and the Doctor went up to check on Tosh while Harper finished the genetic testing.

When they got to the balcony, Toshiko was sitting at her workstation, busily typing on her computer. When she saw them, she finished what she was doing and turned to them.

“Tosh, how’s the algorithm going?” Rose asked.

“All finished. The computer’s scanning the disks now.”

When the computer was finished, the Doctor asked Tosh to run the CCTV footage of his attack in slow motion, giving her the exact time and location to look up. Rose always thought it odd to watch herself on camera, and this time was no different. She saw herself and the Doctor rush into the control room, moving quickly despite the speed of the replay, they must have really been legging it, saw herself throw a hand in the air, the Doctor reach for a computer terminal, a flash of light which overwhelmed the screen, and then the Doctor was on the far side of the room.

“Stop the playback,” he said to Tosh. “I need you to replay that, fifty percent slower, and can you enlarge this area here?” He pointed to the keyboard he had touched.

Tosh played the footage again. Again, when the Doctor touched the computer terminal, the screen turned white as the light that had surrounded him overwhelmed the camera.

He stared at the screen, frowning. “Are you able to reduce the brightness of the display? And enlarge it and slow it down a bit more?”

Tosh made some adjustments and replayed the footage again. This time, the focus on the screen was tightened to just the computer terminal. Rose watched as an arm, the Doctor’s, slowly came into view. Before his hand touched the keyboard, a brilliant light arced from the monitor and slowly spiraled like a snake around his fingers, hand and wrist. Suddenly, the light retracted, and then seemed to … push against him, there was no other word for it, throwing him out of view.

Without being asked, Tosh ran it again. The Doctor stared at the screen for a moment, and then crossed to a chair and sank down, fingers templed in front of his face. Rose and Tosh quietly left him to his thoughts.

 

Sometime later, the Doctor descended the stairs into the autopsy room searching for Rose. He had already looked for her throughout the atrium and the balconies and had been unable to find her. Instead, he found Owen Harper analyzing the data from the medical scans and tissue samples he and Rose had given.

“Have you seen Rose?” he asked the younger man.

“She’s probably in the storage area off the vault,” Harper said absently. “Gwen wanted some help sorting some junk that had come through the Rift.”

As the Doctor turned to go, Owen called him back. “Don’t leave. I need to talk to you and Tyler both. Let me go get her.” He jumped up and left the room. He returned almost immediately with Rose following close behind.

“I’ve been looking over these tissue samples. I don’t know what the hell to make of yours.” Harper said to the Doctor. He put the results on the screen. “I’ve never seen DNA anything like this.”

The Doctor nodded, putting on his glasses and motioning to the screen. “Time Lord genetics. Instead of a double helix, it is a triple helix. And before you ask, it evolved from a structure similar to human DNA, but was also genetically engineered over eons. And that is why we came to you.” He glanced at Rose, who nodded. “Rose said we could trust you. It would not be a good thing if my genetic makeup became … widely known. All of the samples, all of the data, need to be destroyed.”

Owen nodded. “I get that. And I’ve seen some weird stuff analyzing alien biologicals. But I have never run into this.” He touched the screen and another image popped up. “On the left are the results of your mouth swab, and on the right are the results we ran on the sample from your hand. They are similar, but not the same. Same triple helix structure, but the base triads aren’t the same. It’s as if entire sections of the sample on the left were erased and recoded. Now I’ve seen people have two sets of DNA in their systems. The most common reason would be some sort of organ transplant. But these samples are too similar to come from different individuals, and two different to come from the same individual. The closest thing I’ve ever seen is when a close family member donates an organ, but even then, we wouldn’t see these results. It’s almost as if the parts that were recoded were done with the DNA of a different species.”

The Doctor and Rose exchanged glances and then the Doctor cleared his throat. “Um, well, yes, that would be as a result of the… erm … accident… I mentioned.”

“That must have been one hell of an accident.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor responded, thinking of the meta-crisis. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“I can’t even begin to analyze this for you, so I put it all on a USB drive,” Owen said. “And you’ll want to see this as well.” The screen changed. “These are Tyler’s results. I put them on the USB drive as well. There’s nothing wrong with you,” Harper said, addressing Rose directly.

“Well, that’s good,” the Doctor said. Owen looked at him evenly. “That’s good, right?”

“No. It’s not good. It’s impossible.” Torchwood’s doctor responded. “I have never seen anyone with nothing wrong. Even the healthiest people in the world will have a touch of arthritis, evidence of a previous bone break, a cavity, a cold sore. She has nothing. And she should. She broke her wrist about five years ago, I set it myself, and not only has it completely healed, but there is no evidence it was ever broken. That shouldn’t be possible. Other than being overly tired and a bit thin, she is physically perfect. So I looked at her genetically. Again, physically perfect. Not one coding sequence out of order. I’ve never seen that. I’ve never even heard of that. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have said it was statistically impossible.”

“So I checked her organ systems. All are working at 100 percent efficiency. All except her brain. Her brain is completely normal, except there appear to be twice the number of connections you would expect in a healthy human female.”

The Doctor grew cold. Something was definitely not right.

“This is insane.” Rose was incredulous. “Are you saying I’m not human? Because that is completely ridiculous.”

“No, not at all,” Harper responded. “You’re completely human. And I can’t explain it. From what the Doctor described with the dimension cannon, I would have expected some genetic abnormalities, some decreased organ function, something. And there was none of that. The only thing I can guess, and it would have to be a guess without further tests, is that your body has enormous recuperative abilities.

“I would say this, however. You have lost a lot of weight, and you are showing signs of extreme exhaustion. You need to take some time off.”

The Doctor looked at her in concern.

“That is not happening.” Rose was adamant. “There is too much going on right now.”

“Rose,” the Doctor said, “you aren’t the only one who works at Torchwood. Let others handle this.”

She whirled on him. “We’ve got some sort of alien running around, and we’ve got people disappearing right and left all over London. And you were almost killed yesterday. Are you going to back off and let others handle this?” At his silence, she crossed her arms and glared at him. “No? Then neither am I.”

Rose turned and climbed the stairs out of the autopsy room. The Doctor glanced at Harper, who shrugged at him and waved his arm at him to leave. He followed her as she returned to the storage room where she and Gwen had been sorting junk. The room was filled with flotsam and jetsam that had been appeared via the Rift, a spatial/temporal rip in the universe. Periodically items from elsewhere, and elsewhen, would spew out of the Rift. Most items were useless, but some could be useful and others could be dangerous.

“We could use your help,” Rose said without looking at him. She still sounded angry with him. “I promised Gwen that I’d help her out a bit before we left. We need to figure out what all this stuff is and what to do with it.”

“Thanks for your help,” Gwen said with a smile. “I haven’t got a clue what most of this is. We need to sort it so that we can figure out anything that is useful, store anything that is dangerous, and throw out things that are truly junk.”

“Junk being defined as …” the Doctor prompted.

“Junk. Rubbish. Identifiable or unidentifiable items of human origin that belong in the bin.”

“Ahhh.” The Doctor smiled at her. “Happy to help. Piece of cake.” 

Over the next few hours, they managed to reduce the mess considerably. Periodically the Doctor would point out descriptions of the items, blender, carburetor, fuel pump, scale buffer, hair dryer, _there really were a surprising number of personal care products_ , but mostly he’d just pick up pieces and put them in the pile to throw out. There also were a fair number of pieces of Cyber armor and Cyber weapons left over from the war with the Cybermen, and not a small number of the earpods that had been popular the first time he had been in Pete’s World. 

Seeing them gave him an idea. He glanced at Gwen and Rose, who were distracted on the other side of the room, and quickly slipped several small items into his pocket. He stepped casually to the other side of the table, and slipped something else into his pocket, regretting not having worn his blue suit with the larger on the inside pockets.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

After saying their goodbyes, and thanking all the staff, Owen in particular, for all their help, Rose went to pick up a takeaway dinner and the Doctor went back to the hotel suite to work on the analysis of the changes to his DNA. 

There wasn’t anything in the data in front of him that would explain why he hadn’t been killed in the substation. _It must be a question of energy signature_ , he thought. He had only been in this universe for less than a week, and for half of that he had been unconscious. There hadn’t been time for his body to adjust to the different energy signature of this universe. And of course, if that was the case, every moment he spent in this universe brought his body into closer alignment with it. If that attack had happened, say, a week from now, the result might have been very different.

As he studied the medical results in front of him, he discovered something unexpected. The insertion of Donna’s human DNA appeared to have a pattern; it was as if a brilliant genetic engineer had specifically designed the changes to allow him to become almost human in many respects, yet retain the greatest amounts of his abilities as a Time Lord. Unlike the chameleon arch, which rewrote his DNA and changed who he was in some very fundamental ways, these DNA insertions allowed him to change, yet still remain fully himself. It was the specificity that puzzled him. He would have expected random changes as a result of a regeneration accident, but the specific changes suggested a purpose, a design, and that just wasn’t possible. It definitely needed more analysis.

And then there was Rose. How she had managed to use the dimension cannon for so long without any type of chromosomal damage… Well. There always had been more to Rose than met the eye. 

The genetic analyses of Rose and himself had raised more questions than they had answered. They were mysteries, and as much as the Doctor liked a good mystery, he didn’t like one where Rose was concerned. Or himself, for that matter.

As long as he was on the computer, he checked Rose’s email account again. He ignored all her new emails but one. Pete’s assistant, someone named Todd Richards, had sent a file containing a summary of Richard Bradford’s work. He delved into the file.

At the sound of the door opening, he looked up and saw Rose attempting to come in the room, her hands loaded with bags. He jumped up to help her.

“I hope you don’t mind Chinese,” she said, handing him a bag. 

“Not at all, smells great.” He set the bag down on the low table in front of the sofa where they had had breakfast. Turning around, he noticed that Rose was holding a bottle of wine.

“You never got that from the Chinese place.”

She laughed. “No, actually this came from Gwen’s desk.”

“Really? Is it typical for Torchwood employees to keep booze in their desks?”

Rose laughed harder. “No. Actually, believe it or not, this came from Mickey. He was still working here last Christmas and he gave each of them a bottle of wine as a Christmas present. Gwen hadn’t told anyone yet that she had fallen pregnant. She never bothered to bring it home, because she can’t drink it now and her husband, Rhys, only drinks beer or whiskey. She was planning on re-gifting it, and she chose to give it to us.” She handed him the bottle. “Here, you open it while I get us a couple of glasses.”

Turning it over in his hands, he looked the bottle over. The fact that it was from a vineyard he didn’t recognize didn’t really tell him anything, this was the parallel universe after all, but the fact that the oversized bottle had a screw cap did. He raised an eyebrow.

“Obviously a connoisseur of fine wine, Mickey Smith,” he said dryly. He opened the bottle and smelled it.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, returning with two tumblers the hotel provided for water. “He wouldn’t know a good bottle of wine if you hit him over the head with it.”

Rose watched as the Doctor poured a small amount into the glass she handed him. He swirled it in the glass for a second, sniffed it and took a sip. A series of expressions crossed his face, none of them positive.

“That bad, huh?” she asked.

He grimaced, and then shrugged. “I’ve had worse. There’s a brew that they make on Ojii 12, it’ll put hair on your chest. Literally. Hairiest women I ever met were on Ojii 12.”

Rose laughed. “If we ever go there, remind me to stick to water.”

He grinned at her. Evidently she had more confidence than he did that he could get the TARDIS coral to grow. Her confidence in him always astounded him. “Oh, believe me, you don’t want the water there. It’ll turn you mauve.”

“Isn’t that the interplanetary color signaling danger?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “and with all the people turning mauve, there were so many false reports of planetwide emergencies reported to the Shadow Proclamation, drinking water has been outlawed there.”

She laughed again, wondering whether or not to believe him. She had always had the feeling the Doctor used to make up half the stuff he told her.

“Here, let me try,” she said, holding out her glass. He poured her a small amount of the wine.

She took a small sip. “Well,” she said slowly, “it’s not as bad as I thought it could be. What do you think? Do we drink it or toss it?”

In response, he poured each of them a glass. 

“To Mickey Smith, and other absent friends,” he said, lifting his glass.

She nodded, smiling, and clinked his glass with hers. “To Mickey,” she responded.

As she unloaded and set up their dinner, the Doctor summarized for her what the missing Torchwood scientist had been researching.

“He was definitely researching alternate energies,” he said, taking from her a carton full of some sort of stir fry dish he didn’t recognize. “There was a memo describing what he referred to as a new type of energy, but it didn’t describe what that energy was. There are also plans for something that looked like a new type of solar panel, but I don’t know how far he got in building it. We’ll have to ask Pete when we get back tomorrow.” He started to eat, wielding a pair of chop sticks like an expert.

“It was weird, though,” he continued. “Some of the materials listed are things I’ve never even heard of. I don’t know if they are things unique to this universe, or just the local names for something I am familiar with.”

Sitting down across from him, she started on her own dinner. “I thought we could swing by Torchwood Four on our way home. Dad’ll be there and we can brief him and get an update at the same time.”

“Fine.” 

Rose toyed with her food. The Chinese place had changed hands and wasn’t as good as she remembered. She decided she wasn’t particularly hungry, anyway. She put it down and picked up her wine. Taking a sip, she sat back and tried to relax. It had been a long day. As much as she had protested to the Doctor and Owen earlier that she didn’t need to take any time off, she was exhausted. Too tired to do anything else, she watched the Doctor eat. It was amazing he was so skinny. She had purchased twice as much food for him as for herself and he was almost finished. Leaning forward, she took the bottle of wine and refilled both of their glasses.

“Doctor, why was Owen so concerned about my test results?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say he was concerned,” the Doctor answered. “More like puzzled.”

“You don’t know Owen that well,” Rose responded. “He was concerned.”

“You heard what he said. It is statistically impossible to be genetically perfect.”

“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t get,” Rose said. “I took physics, not biology.”

The Doctor thought for a moment, searching his brain for an example that could describe complex genetics in simpler terms. 

“Let’s say you have a really big computer program,” he said, “and every time you run it, little tiny mistakes creep into the program. Over time those mistakes will build up and cause problems.”

“Okay, I get that,” Rose said. “But what if the mistakes don’t creep into the program?”

“Impossible.” The Doctor shook his head. “Given enough time, things happen. Law of nature.”

Rose thought about that.

“All right,” she said slowly. “So what if you looked at the program and there weren’t any mistakes?”

“Well, then you either haven’t ever run the program, or maybe you’ve run some other program that has fixed all the mistakes.”

She thought about that and tried to see how it applied to her genetics. “So if we’re calling me and my body the giant computer program, I either haven’t run the program, meaning what exactly?”

He laughed. “It would mean you not only aren’t alive, but have never been alive. And believe me, you are very much alive.” 

She laughed. “Okay. So that’s out. What was the other option? A debugging program that went through and fixed all the mistakes?”

“Logically, that would be the other option, but I don’t see how that could even be possible. It would entail recoding every strand of DNA in every chromosome in every cell of your body. There are things that can do that, but not on a twenty-first century Earth, parallel or not. You lot haven’t been playing around with gene resequencers at Torchwood, have you?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. If anyone is, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. What about the dimension cannon?” she asked. “Could that have anything to do with it?”

“No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not. That thing’s a nightmare. You are lucky you didn’t blow yourself up the first time you used it. You have no idea what type of risk you were taking.” He hated thinking of her using it. It terrified him to think what could have happened to her. 

She pursed her lips. “Yeah, I do. But I had to do it, regardless of the risk,” she said pointedly.

She was right and he knew it. If she hadn’t been searching for him, he might not have discovered the Daleks’ plot in time. But he still didn’t want to admit it.

Rose was silent for a moment. “What else did Owen say? About brain connections?”

“Well, the more connections you have, the faster the brain can work.” He grinned at her. “So basically, you’re brilliant. But I told you that before.”

She sighed loudly. “I don’t feel particularly brilliant. I feel like a complete idiot, because I still don’t get what the problem is, or what it means.”

“The problem is we don’t know how you got this way. We don’t understand it. And as for what it means …” The Doctor actually had no idea what it could mean, and having no idea about something always worried him. But he really didn’t want to tell her that. “It just means you will probably live a very long and healthy life. Long for a human, that is,” he clarified. “Assuming you don’t work yourself to death.”

She made a face. “I’ll take some time off,” she promised, “after this is all over. But not before.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“So what about you? What was all that about your results?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “It’s gonna take me some time to analyze all the results, but basically, genetically my hand,” he said, looking at it and wiggling his fingers, “my hand still has pure Time Lord DNA, and my body is a mixture of Time Lord and human DNA. But it doesn’t have anything to do with why that thing didn’t kill me yesterday.” He explained to her his energy signature theory.

“And there’s more,” he said. “I may have been wrong about what happened at the substation.”

“You mean, it may not have been an alien?” she asked.

“Oh, no. It was definitely an alien,” he answered, running his hand through his hair in an unconscious sign of frustration. “But I may have been wrong about whether or not it is sentient. I didn’t just get thrown across the room. I was pushed. A non-thinking creature might have recoiled away from me, but only something that was thinking, that was aware, would have shoved me like that. But I’m still not sure what any of this has to do with Richard Bradford’s research.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence?”

“No. If anything, I’m even more convinced it’s all tied together. I just don’t know how.”

They both fell silent as the Doctor finished his dinner. Afterwards, he sat back in his chair, lost in thought. After several minutes, Rose couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

“You’ve gotten awfully quiet, especially for you,” Rose teased. “What are you thinking about?”

“You said something at lunch today,” he said thoughtfully, “something about how many different bosses you’ve had at Torchwood Three, and it just got me thinking about the differences between this world and your home world. Even the presence of one person can make a huge impact on the world. And if that person is in the wrong world, or in their wrong time…”

“Are you talking about us? Because we’re in the wrong world?”

“No. Well, yes. Yes and no. Our presence here is causing ripples I can’t even begin to imagine. But actually I was thinking more about Jack.”

“Jack? Jack Harkness?”

“Yeah. He’s been the head of Torchwood Three for years, and here, no one has been able to keep that job for more than a year. The question is, is this universe compensating for the lack of Jack Harkness in that job, or is the other universe compensating for him being there?”

“He’s the head of Torchwood Three?” Rose asked. “How did that happen?”

“Now that is a really long story and I don’t know all of it, but essentially he was looking for me, ended up in Cardiff and began working for them, oooh, long, long time ago, and eventually ended up running Torchwood.” 

“How is that even possible? He hardly looks a day older than he did when we were travelin’.” Rose was thoughtful. “And there’s another thing. How on earth did Jack survive that Dalek blast on the Crucible? Just a glancing blow caused you, well, the Doctor, to regenerate, and yet Jack got a full blast, point blank, and survived.”

The Doctor inwardly cringed. He had known this conversation was coming from the point Rose and Jack were together again in the TARDIS, and it had been a conversation he had avoided and deflected with Rose for a very long time. He could lie. It’s not as if he wasn’t good at it. He had lied about it in the past to protect her. And himself, of course. But he had promised to be open and honest, and if they even had the possibility of a future together, he didn’t want to ruin it before it even started.

Rose saw the Doctor looking at her with a serious expression on his face. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. 

“Rose,” he said slowly, “what do you remember about the Game Station? And Bad Wolf?”

Rose blinked. She was taken aback at the turn in the conversation. “Uh, I dunno. Not sure really. More than I used to, I think.” Her eyes lost focus as she tried to remember. “I remember some things clearly, like being so upset when he, the Doctor, sent me home. I remember figuring out the words Bad Wolf were a message to me that I could get back to him, and I got Mum and Mickey to help me rip out a section of the TARDIS console so I could try and get back to him. I know I somehow got back to him, and I know I destroyed the Daleks, but I don’t know how. Anyway, the next thing I remember clearly, the next thing I’m absolutely sure of, I was back in the TARDIS and the Doctor was regenerating.”

She paused, and when she continued her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “I dream about it sometimes. In my dreams, I’m looking into the heart of the TARDIS and there’s this brilliant golden light but it doesn’t hurt my eyes and there’s all this music around me and I see into her and she sees into me. And it’s so beautiful.”

“Anything else?” he asked quietly.

“Sometimes when I dream I see the Doctor and he’s surrounded by Daleks and all I can think is how all I want is for him to be safe.” She was so lost in her memories it sounded to the Doctor as if she was in a trance. “He’s so desperate and so scared and I just want to protect him.”

Rose paused for a moment and closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye, she could see her Doctor, her first Doctor, all short hair and big ears and still incredibly gorgeous, standing terrified in front of the Daleks. Thinking of him, that him, almost always broke her heart. No matter how much she knew his tenth form was the same man, how much she loved the man he had turned into, she still missed that him so, so much sometimes. “In my dreams he’s begging me to stop something, but I don’t understand. I see words flying through the air and the Daleks turn to dust. And sometimes I dream about Jack. In my dream he’s dead, and I want him alive.”

“And then?” he asked.

Eyes still closed, Rose lifted her hand to her face, her fingertips gently ghosting her lips. Several tears rolled down her cheeks. She opened her eyes and wiped her face. “The rest… doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. “I know that part never happened. Just a dream.”

The Doctor leaned forward and took her hands in his. “Rose,” he said, “it wasn’t a dream. Not precisely. It was your memories of that time, your memories of being Bad Wolf, sneaking into your dreams from your subconscious. All that you described to me, all of it, including the last bit you didn’t want to talk about, all of it happened.”

“When you opened the console, you looked into the heart of the TARDIS and somehow the TARDIS looked into you. You became the Bad Wolf. You had the whole of the Time Vortex running through you at that point. You came back; you flew the TARDIS back to the Game Station and destroyed the Dalek fleet, destroyed the Dalek Emperor, and saved me. But it was killing you, so I took it out of you and put it back into the TARDIS.”

Her eyes were wide. “Then the kiss…”

“Was me, well, him, removing the Vortex from you.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “He had to remove the Vortex by kissing me?”

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable. “Well, no. Not as such. There were lots of ways I, he, could have removed the Time Vortex. That was just the way that seemed the most… appropriate… at the time.”

“Really?” She stared at him in disbelief and found he wouldn’t meet her eyes. The tips of his ears had turned pink. Was he… blushing?

She sat back and tried to remember the dream. Her Doctor had kissed her. Her first Doctor had kissed her, and she hadn’t known. It made her happy and yet unaccountably sad at the same time. She sighed. “Sure wish I could remember it better.”

“But wait,” she said, realizing something. “What caused him to regenerate?”

The Doctor swallowed nervously. Now was the beginning of the tough bit, the reason he had been avoiding this conversation for so long.

“The Time Vortex is really powerful, Rose. Even a Time Lord can’t have the whole Vortex running through him.”

“He said something like that, didn’t he? I had forgotten that.” She gasped as realization set in. “He died trying to save me. I killed him. I came back to save him and I killed him.”

“Oh, no, no, no, Rose,” the Doctor responded quickly. “No, you saved me. The Daleks would have killed me and I would have died without regenerating.”

“And what about Jack?”

“You saved him, too. The Daleks had killed him, and you brought him back. The last act of the Time War was to give him back his life.” He paused, dreading to finish the thought. The main reason he had never told her. But he had promised. “But the power was too great and you couldn’t control it. When you brought him back, you brought him back permanently. He became a fixed point. He couldn’t die. Rather, he could die, but he always comes back.” He paused, thinking of the death of the Face of Boe. Had that truly been Jack after billions of years? The thought still vaguely disturbed him.

Rose grew quiet. It was so much to take in. She didn’t bother asking why the Doctor had never told her about this. He had always tried to protect her to a fault, particularly by sending her away when things got too dangerous. She wasn’t surprised he would have tried to protect her from knowing about this.

What did surprise her was that this Doctor had told her. He had respected her enough to tell her the truth when she asked. He had treated her as an adult, an equal even, and she was grateful.

The rest of the revelations, however, spun out of control in her mind. Despite what the Doctor said, she had been responsible for the death of her first Doctor. She had loved him so deeply, and he had died trying to save her. And Jack. What Jack had gone through, what she had caused, horrified her. He hadn’t survived being shot by the Dalek. He had died and come back to life. How many times over the years had that happened? How many deaths had he endured, and how many would he go through in the future? She was glad he was alive, but at what cost?

She drained her glass of wine and poured herself another. She rarely drank, but tonight she felt she needed the numbness the alcohol could provide. Then tomorrow, when the immediacy of these revelations about Jack and her first Doctor had worn off, she could deal with them.

The Doctor watched Rose for any sign of adverse reaction to the news about Jack. Other than being a bit quiet, which was understandable, it was an awful lot to process, she seemed to be handling it alright. He didn’t know what he had expected, but she seemed to be fine. Maybe tonight would be a good night to talk about the rest of everything. It was quiet. They wouldn’t be interrupted. They were already talking. And it seemed almost an appropriate segue to go from talking about his ninth regeneration to talking about the meta-crisis. 

Rose picked at her dinner. It just tasted like sand. She tried to wash the taste out of her mouth with her wine.

Finally, draining the last of the wine in his cup, he gathered up as much courage as he could (always a bit of a coward, him, he thought, in each one of his forms) and spoke.

“Rose, we really need to talk. About what happened on the beach. And …other things. We’ve been avoiding it for days.”

She froze, looking like a deer caught in headlights. 

The look on Rose’s face made him hesitate, made him want to back away from any more discussions, but he knew they really needed to talk about everything. And she had seemed to handle the news about Jack really well. And if nothing else, he really needed to explain the meta-crisis to her. It was killing him inside to have her not realize who he was. And the longer it went on, the harder it would be to explain it to her. He should have done it on the zeppelin. No, he should have made sure she understood while they were still on the beach. 

After a moment, she took a long drink from her glass of wine. Rose took a deep breath. “What part of it?” she asked. 

“Any. All.” 

All of a sudden, it was too much. It was just way too much. The events of the past week, months, years even, just crashed down on her. Looking for her Doctor for so long, just to have him abandon her. Finding out about what she had unintentionally done to Jack. Learning about her role in her first Doctor’s death. Seeing this Doctor attacked at the substation, _was that just yesterday_? And remembering how she had impulsively kissed this man without thinking. While the TARDIS left without her. The emotional rollercoaster she had been on for so long started its final plummet, fueled by exhaustion, alcohol, and emotional overload. No, she told herself, she was absolutely not going to cry again.

Rose tried to pull herself together as well as she could. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay? I know I should have said this before. I’m really, really sorry.” 

“What are you sorry for?” he asked, honestly puzzled.

“Oh God, just about everything.” She took a deep breath. She felt a bit lightheaded and wondered belatedly how much wine she had had. How many times had she refilled her glass?

Rose tried to start over. “It was a mistake, an accident. I was caught up in the moment when I…” she sighed, wiping her face with her hands. 

“When you what?” The Doctor was having a very difficult time following her train of thought.

“When I kissed you, okay? It wasn’t fair to you and I’m sorry.” She got up and fled to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

She was sorry? She was _sorry_? The best thing that had happened to him in this life, the only thing that was giving him any kind of hope in this insane situation, and she was sorry about it? He didn’t know if he should feel angry or devastated, so he settled on both. With more than a little anxiety and depression thrown in, too. 

He returned to his own room, slamming his door as well. No wonder she didn’t want to discuss the beach. He knew they had plenty of issues to discuss about what happened, he even realized she might have regretted kissing him, but the thought that she was overwhelmed with guilt about it truly had not occurred to him.

The reality of the situation made him sick to his stomach. Here he was, trapped on this planet, stuck in a body that was neither completely human nor entirely Gallifreyan, in love with a woman who didn’t believe he was who he said he was. Who was in love with him, but not _this_ him. And who regretted the single instance of impromptu affection he had received from her.

It sounded like a bad romance novel. Here he was, last of the Time Lords… no, he couldn’t even say that. That was the other him. Here he was, formerly last of the Time Lords, not even certain if he even qualified as a Time Lord anymore, totally besotted with a woman who stayed with him out of a generous heart and a duty to the man he used to be. And the worst part was he didn’t think he could live without her. He had tried and only partially succeeded when they were trapped in separate universes. But now that they were in the same universe, the same planet, the same city… But she didn’t want him.

Hands balled up in fists, he stalked around the room, swearing and looking for something to throw. The only thing he could find was the lamp, but he found it was attached to the bedside table. Which was attached to the floor. He had a sudden urge to put his fist through the wall, which he only barely restrained. He settled on removing his trainers and throwing them. It wasn’t as good as throwing something that would make a loud, satisfying crash, but at least with their rubber soles they didn’t do any damage.

The alcohol had been a mistake. For him and probably for her as well. He had hoped it would have relaxed them just enough to overcome their difficulties in talking about everything, but instead it had made them just drunk enough to be emotional and get hurt. And he didn’t seem to be able to shrug off the effects of alcohol like he used to be able to. _Just one more way this fucking body is different_ , he thought angrily. 

 

Rose lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She winced as she heard the other bedroom door slam, followed by cursing in at least two languages. Her heart broke as she realized how deeply she had hurt him. That had not been her intention. If only he hadn’t pressed her on talking about the beach when she was more than half pissed on cheap wine. And right after telling her about Jack and her first Doctor. Okay, that was a little dumb on his part. He could be so clueless sometimes. _Time and a place, Doctor_ , she thought in frustration. But as much as she wanted to blame him for anything and everything, she knew it wasn’t his fault. She was the one who had screwed up Jack’s life. She was the one who had had too much to drink. She was the one who spoke before she thought, this time at least. She had an overwhelming urge to get up and go apologize for her apology, but even in her drunken state she realized that that didn’t make any sense.

Whatever had possessed her to say she was sorry about kissing him? Because she might have felt that way at first, but she wasn’t even sure that was true anymore. 

This whole situation was so bizarre she didn’t know what was true anymore.

She had to talk to him. She had to fix this. Rose stood up, and the room swayed around her. Or perhaps she was doing the swaying. _Damn_ , she thought, and fell back down on the bed. _That wine must have been stronger than I thought_. 

_Damn, damn, damn, damn_ , Rose thought to herself as she stared at the ceiling, _how do I fix this_? The last thing in the world she wanted to do is to hurt him. He might not be her Doctor, but he was brilliant, gorgeous, and fun. And compassionate and thoughtful. And dead sexy. And he didn’t treat her like a child or a stupid ape or something to hold at arms length. And she was afraid she might be falling in love with him.

 _That’s ridiculous_ , she told herself. She was already in love with the Doctor, and she was just confusing whatever she was feeling with the feelings she already had for the Time Lord in the other universe. Probably. That’s what had led to that snog on the beach after all, confused feelings. Right? She really wished she knew. If only her head would clear.

She had to fix this. Getting up to go talk to him, Rose heard the water turn on in his bathroom. She sat back down on the bed, deciding to talk to him in the morning. _The morning would be better anyway_ , she told herself. In the morning she wouldn’t be drunk anymore. In the morning they would talk and she would fix this.

 

He stood in the shower trying to calm down, cool water pouring over his head. He had screwed up. He had screwed it up again. Why on Earth, or Pete’s World now, did everything always have to go all pear-shaped where Rose was concerned? From that first trip in the TARDIS to the end of the Earth, when she had almost gotten herself incinerated, to Cardiff in 1869 when he had almost gotten her killed by the Gelth, to Downing Street when he had almost blown her up with a missile. And that was just in the first week he had known her. And how many times had he hurt her by pulling away from her, by hiding how he felt? How many times had he sent her away? How many times had he almost gotten her killed?

At least he hadn’t almost gotten her killed this week. Well, not unless you count the events on the Crucible. Was that this week? Not sure about that. He had almost gotten himself killed this week, though. Yesterday, in fact. And today, after basically telling her she killed his ninth self and irreparably damaged one of her best friends, for eternity no less, he had pressed her to talk about something she wasn’t ready to talk about, to semi-disastrous results.

Blimey, he was completely rubbish at this.

And the day had started out so well, too. To think he had almost been hopeful this morning he and Rose could eventually work things out. Maybe he should just stop trying, stop trying to force things between them and just accept the fact that she would never accept him as the Doctor. At least, not as her Doctor. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t be friends. They had always been friends, after all. Best friends.

But he didn’t want to be just her _friend_ anymore. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, which he almost never was, he hadn’t wanted to be just her friend for a very, very long time. Certainly not since Cardiff. The first time.

_Better with two._

_I’m so glad I met you._

_You look beautiful…considering that you’re human._

Even then he had been trying to distance himself from his feelings.

Maybe his first instinct had been right and he shouldn’t have told her about Jack and the events at the Game Station. After all, it wasn’t as if they would run into Harkness at the local Tesco or something.

No, she deserved to know. Maybe protecting her from the truth when she was nineteen had made sense, but she was an adult and deserved to know. And he had promised to try and be open with her. 

He almost wished he had gotten more of Donna in the meta-crisis. Donna had eventually understood how he felt about Rose, without even being told. Donna would have known how to fix this. Donna … who no longer remembered him. Who would never remember him again.

And that was his fault, too.


	18. Chapter Seventeen

_“Wake up, wake up, wake up.”_

The Doctor slowly returned to consciousness. After tossing and turning thinking about the incident with Rose for two hours and twenty-seven minutes, he had finally fallen asleep only to wake up again after, what, an hour and fourteen minutes? Well, maybe his sleeping habits were finally going to return to normal. But he was still so tired. And his hand was aching. Maybe a bit more sleep.

_“Come on, Doctor. WAKE. UP!”_

“Rose?” he murmured, confused. The voice in his head hadn’t really sounded like Rose. It was deeper, more masculine. His own voice. And in his head…

Now fully awake, the Doctor suddenly realized who was calling him and hurriedly put himself into a telepathic trance. 

He opened his eyes to find himself in the TARDIS. Oh, it was brilliant to be there, even if it was only mentally. His other self was leaning against the console, looking at him. The Doctor could even feel the TARDIS in his mind through the link with his other self, and it felt wonderful.

“Get you up, did I?” 

“You know you did,” he said, trying to stifle a yawn. “What?”

The Time Lord raised one eyebrow. 

The part human Doctor looked down at himself. He was still wearing what he had worn to bed, striped pyjama bottoms and nothing else.

“What?” he said again. “It’s bloody warm as a part human sometimes. I’m not used to it yet.” He sniffed. “Oh, alright.”

He closed his eyes. His other self was wearing the brown pinstripes, so… When he opened his eyes, he was wearing the blue pinstriped suit and deep purplish-red t-shirt he had worn when he had last been in the TARDIS. He crossed the room and caressed the console once before turning to sit down on the jump seat.

“Sooooo,” he said brightly, “how long’s it been?”

“Six months,” his other self replied. “More or less. Well, I _say_ six months…”

“Really?” he asked, intentionally cutting his other self off. He knew himself well enough to recognize the start of a ramble when he heard it. “It’s only been about a week for me. Where are you?”

“Cardiff,” the other replied. “Been putting off some needed repairs to the TARDIS, so I thought I’d do them and take advantage of the Rift at the same time.”

“Cardiff,” the Doctor replied, chuckling to himself. He leaned back on the jump seat, putting his red trainer-clad feet up on the console. He folded his arms across his chest. “Figures.”

“Why?”

“Cos we’re in Cardiff, too, staying in a hotel by the bay. Be able to see the TARDIS from here if we were in the same universe.”

“We?”

“Me ‘n Rose.”

He saw his other self stiffen.

“I wanted a complete medical scan from someone Rose could trust,” the Doctor explained, but felt the need to elaborate in response to the Time Lord Doctor’s reaction. “And Rose and I … aren’t like that.”

Oddly, this information seemed to make his other self even more upset. “Why not?”

“Because she can’t accept that I’m you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Blimey, for a second there it was almost hard for me to accept.”

The Time Lord looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“Hello, human DNA? One heart?” As he answered, it occurred to him that he occasionally still sounded a bit like Donna when he was upset. “And it’s not as if a meta-crisis regeneration is a normal, everyday occurrence. Not even for Time Lords.” 

His other self rubbed the back of his neck and nodded in understanding. Then he tugged unconsciously on one ear, the way he always seemed to when he had something difficult to say. 

“Is she, is Rose, upset with me?”

“Oh yes.” The Doctor in blue grinned, and then his smile faded. “Angry and confused and hurt. Do you blame her? In her mind you rejected her and sent her off with a copy. And you didn’t even have the grace to say goodbye. After you promised you’d never do this to her. But she’ll get over it. She loves you.”

The Time Lord looked troubled. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“I know. I’m you, remember?”

They were both silent for a moment.

“Alright, change of subject.” The Time Lord straightened his brown pinstriped jacket. “You said something about a medical scan. What was that all about?”

“I needed to find out the extent of the effect of Donna’s DNA in my body.”

“And did you?”

“For the most part. Still have to finish a bit of the genetic analysis. Otherwise, mild to moderate changes to most major organs. One heart, which we knew. Human lungs rather than a Gallifreyan respiratory system. Endocrine and other systems are a blend of Gallifreyan and human. At least my brain and nervous system is still essentially the same. Figured that, otherwise what happened to Donna would have happened to me.”

The Time Lord nodded. He didn’t need to ask how the part human Doctor knew about Donna. As soon as they had realized Donna had received his mind in the meta-crisis, they had both known what would happen.

“Senses are a bit reduced. Still way beyond human normal, though. Except eyesight.” The Doctor in blue sat up suddenly. “I need glasses now!” he whined to his other self. “Admittedly only for reading, but still! And I need to sleep! Every day!”

Sighing, he leaned back again, resting his head on the back of the jump seat. As he stared at the arched ceiling of the console room, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I can still see alternate timelines. Since they are in the parallel universe, I can’t always tell what they mean, what’s right or wrong. But my animamedia is damaged. And you know what that means.”

“Yes. And it means mine is, too.” The Time Lord was somber.

“At least yours will be healed next time you regenerate.” He tried not to sound bitter, but he knew he did. A regeneration could heal just about anything, even the damage caused by the meta-crisis to the Time Lord Doctor, but of course he himself wouldn’t be regenerating again. He paused, then tugged his ear. “I had Rose scanned as well.”

“What?” The Time Lord blanched. “Why? Is she alright?”

“Actually, yes. Other than exhaustion and perhaps a bit too much weight loss, she’s perfect. A little too perfect.” He explained to his other self what Owen had said. “And you should have seen the dimension cannon they were using. Rose used it at least five times for every time anyone else used it. There is no way she should have escaped chromosomal damage. But she did.”

The Time Lord rubbed the back of his neck and looked worried. “You keep an eye on her,” he demanded. He shook his finger at the part human Doctor. “You take care of her.”

“You know I will. As long as she’ll let me,” the Doctor said quietly.

The Time Lord sighed and nodded in understanding.

The part human Doctor watched his other self for a moment. “Why am I here? Why did you call me?”

The Time Lord turned and started adjusting the controls on the console. 

From where he sat on the jump seat the Doctor scoffed. “Really? You are fiddling with the controls? You are parked in Cardiff in the middle of a telepathic conversation with yourself. Who do you think you are fooling?”

His other self shot him a look.

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, if you won’t answer that, how about this. It’s been months since you took Donna home. Who are you traveling with now?”

The Time Lord wouldn’t look at him.

“Oh, no.” Now the Doctor was worried. “You aren’t alone, are you? You know we are rubbish alone.”

Silence.

“Well, you are in Cardiff. How about going to see Jack? When was the last time you saw Jack?”

“When we dropped him off.”

“Well, why don’t you go see him now?”

“Jack,” his other self said slowly, “has a lot on his plate right now. He doesn’t need to deal with me. He has his own problems to deal with.”

 _What an idiot I am_ , the Doctor thought in frustration. “All the more reason to go and see him, Spaceman!” he exploded, shocking himself. He immediately clamped a hand tightly over his mouth.

The Time Lord’s eyes widened at the familiar outburst from an unexpected source.

“Sorry,” the Doctor in blue said apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck. “Donna’s speech patterns pop out of me every once in a while. I’ve been trying to stop it, but it’ll take some time. Like breaking a bad habit. Thankfully I didn’t get any of her other idiosyncrasies. I’d hate to hate running or have a propensity for hats or suddenly like pears or something.” He realized he was rambling and forced himself to stop. Donna was a painful topic for both of them. “Anyway… If you won’t see Jack, promise me you’ll go see Martha. Or Sarah Jane. Just for a visit. Please.”

The Time Lord nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Alright, I’ll go see Sarah Jane.”

“And find someone to travel with.” The Doctor paused. “I worry about me,” he said with a slight grin.

The Time Lord just looked at the part human Doctor, refusing to lie to himself.

The Doctor in blue sighed and got up, walking to his other self. “If you won’t _talk_ about this…” he said. He raised his hand until it was next to the other man’s temple without touching it. “Share with me.” It wasn’t a request.

After a moment, the Time Lord nodded, and both men gently touched the other’s temple. As they were both telepaths, it wasn’t necessary. As they were already in telepathic conference, it was a bit redundant. And as they were still both essentially the same person, it was borderline ludicrous, but symbolically it was important for both of them. 

In a matter of moments, the Time Lord’s experiences of the past months rushed through the part human Doctor’s mind. Images zoomed past him at breakneck speed beginning with the moment he threw off the regeneration energy into his hand. He tried not to focus on any one image, preferring to examine them all in detail later. He saw glimpses of Sontarans and Rutans, an interdimensional transport, more Cybermen and a flying bus. He got the sense that something that had happened recently, something connected with that bus, was troubling his other self. 

In exchange, the Doctor shared the details of the past few days, beginning with the formation of his body on the TARDIS. He showed the Time Lord visions of Jackie, Pete and Tony, Torchwood and the missing stars. He showed him shopping for clothes and shared with him the taste of the banana caramel.

And he showed his other self Rose. Rose catching him as he passed out on the front steps of the Tyler mansion. Rose laughing at something he said. Rose with her hair streaming behind her while driving the convertible.

Rose, standing on a beach, staring at the empty space where the TARDIS had stood. Rose sitting motionless next to him in the zeppelin, tears quietly streaming down her face. Rose sitting on a rock next to a man made pond, crying into his shoulder. Rose apologizing for kissing him on the beach.

The Time Lord in brown pinstripes swallowed thickly.

“You should never have left her,” the part human Doctor said softly.

“What was I supposed to do?” the Time Lord lashed out. “Leave you alone?”

“Yes, if necessary.”

“You were too dangerous,” his other self insisted.

“How? And to whom?” the Doctor in blue retorted. “I’m stuck on a twenty-first century Earth parallel in a fragile body with a limited lifespan without the TARDIS, without my psychic paper, without even a sonic screwdriver. How much damage do you really think I could do?”

“You know exactly why you are too dangerous.” The Time Lord’s eyes flashed. “You remember what we were like after the Time War. The mood swings, the anger, the depression. The suicide attempts. You remember why we went on the Titanic. And to Krakatoa. Rose brought us out of all that. And as far what damage you could do… we once brought down a government using only six words.”

“Any government that can be taken down with six words from anyone isn’t strong enough in the first place! And you are changing the subject. You should not have left her here with me. She doesn’t love me.” 

“She will.”

“You don’t know that. If I don’t know that, you don’t know that.”

“The walls of the universe are sealed,” the Time Lord said in a voice that indicated that those were his last words on the subject.

The part human Doctor swore in a combination of Gallifreyan and English. “Two words, _Time Lord_.” He made it sound like an insult. “ _Time machine_. You know very well that the damage to the Medusa Cascade was so extensive that it would take weeks to heal, not days. You could go back to a time right after we destroyed the reality bomb and if you were careful, you could still get through.”

“Why are you so quick to want to get rid of her?” the Time Lord said angrily.

“Because…” he shouted, and then fell silent. He found he couldn’t look his other self in the eye. “Because I… love… her,” he mumbled, still finding it difficult to say the words aloud, even to someone who was still essentially himself. “I want her to be happy. Even if it’s not with me.”

“And that’s why I left her with you,” the Time Lord said quietly. “Because I want her to be happy.” He was looking at his trainers, rather than at the Doctor in blue. It occurred to each one of them that even in the privacy of their own minds they couldn’t even be honest enough with themselves to look each other in the eye. Odd that, thought the part human Doctor.

“But I shouldn’t even exist,” the part human Doctor said softly. “If I didn’t exist she’d be with you right now.”

The Time Lord looked up at him sharply. “Don’t think like that. You can’t let yourself think like that.” 

They both fell silent.

The Doctor in blue found himself yawning again.

“Time to go,” said the Time Lord, adjusting his brown pinstriped jacket. It wasn’t a question.

“Right,” he said ruefully. “Telepathy to a parallel universe is exhausting, even if you are only talking to yourself. Especially if you are part human.”

The part human Doctor looked around the console room, taking in the arched struts, the roundels, the hum of the time rotor, the gentle glow of the coral. Had he ever truly noticed how beautiful it all was? He tried to memorize every detail, from the mismatched parts he had replaced over the years to the small tear on the jump seat. He noticed a broken coupling he had always meant to fix, and now never would. Not this him, at least. Reluctantly, he gave the console one last caress. 

“Take care of Rose,” his other self said sadly.

“Does that even need saying?” he replied evenly. “I will do whatever it takes.”

And abruptly, he was back in bed in Cardiff. He gasped as pain radiated up from his right hand through his arm into his chest and abdomen. But it was the emptiness in his mind that made him scream.

The shock of the sudden loss of the telepathic connection to his other self and by extension the TARDIS was so acute, such a physical blow he literally cried out. Somehow, in the chaos of dealing with the physical changes in his body, he hadn’t noticed the loss of the presence of the TARDIS in his mind on a conscious level, but now, having felt it through the connection with his other self, the loss was overwhelming and seemed profoundly permanent. The loneliness, the emptiness in his mind was all-consuming. Heart racing, he found himself unable to breathe, gasping for air. The last time his mind had felt so alone was immediately after the Time War, with the loss of his planet and his people. And that had been his fault as well. But even then, he’d been able to feel the gentle presence of the TARDIS in the back of his mind. Now that was gone, too.

Pain. Hot. No air. Trapped. His mind was only able to function on the most basic, primitive levels. He sat up and looked around the room. Window. Balcony. Fresh air. Panting, he jumped up and rushed to the sliding glass door. Throwing it open, he went out on the narrow balcony and took in deep breaths of the cool night air. 

From the balcony, he could see the glow of the illuminated pillars in Roald Dahl Plass. Where the TARDIS was. But not in this universe. The TARDIS would never be anywhere in this universe again. He couldn’t quite see the bay, but he could feel the breeze blow in from across the water. He shivered, but whether it was from cold or fear he did not know. 

Slowly his heart rate returned to normal. Was this going to be what the rest of his life was like? Imprisoned in an alien body, trapped alone within the confines of his own mind? He thought he knew loneliness before, but now... 

As the pain in his hand subsided, he realized its source. Somehow, telepathic contact with his other self was irritating the nerve endings in his fully Time Lord hand. Well, it made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. He was a touch telepath, and his hand must have been acting like a receiver for his other self’s telepathic projections. Telepathy was difficult over long distances, but across the void… He had had to use the power of a supernova routed through the TARDIS to contact Rose after Canary Wharf. It was only because both he and his other self were both in Cardiff, right on top of the rift, that a clear telepathic signal was possible between the two of them. And only because they shared the same brain wave pattern.

And he felt certain that unintentional telepathic projections were the source of his nightmares as well. He must have been receiving them from his other self in his sleep. His other self must be profoundly lonely and deeply troubled to be projecting so strongly over such a great distance. 

And it was all his fault.

His mind returned to the brief interchange he had had with his other self. Although he had known what had to have happened to Donna, in the mind exchange he had more than seen it. He had lived it. Donna begging not to be sent home, begging for her mind not to be wiped despite it burning inside her. Donna collapsing on the floor of the TARDIS. Returning Donna to her family. Having her not recognize him. Pain and sadness, guilt and loneliness. And it was all his fault. If this body hadn’t been created, if the meta-crisis hadn’t occurred, she would never have had to have her mind wiped. 

And Rose. Rose still stuck here in this universe, still separated from the man she loved, assigned a lifetime babysitting job of a man who shouldn’t even be here. Shouldn’t even exist. And that was his fault, too. She wouldn’t even be here if he wasn’t here.

And his other self. Separated from Donna. Separated from Rose. His other self should be with Rose and both of them should be happy. Instead, they were both miserable. And all because of him.

Tears rolled freely down his cheeks as his guilt at his own existence consumed him. He saw no end to the pain, not for any of them, not while he was in this, or any other, universe.

Nothing he did would ever be able to restore Donna. But if he wasn’t here, the Time Lord him would be able to come back for Rose. If he was gone, his other self would telepathically know. Would be able to feel it. Would know to come back.

He crossed to the railing. Placing his hands on the cold metal bar, he looked over. And down. A long way down. A tiny voice inside his head, a voice he hadn’t heard since Krop Tor, began to whisper. Jump, jump, jump. Fall, fall, fall. And this time, there would be nothing to slow the pull of gravity. And no regenerations to bring him back.

 

Rose reached out and touched the white wall in front of her. It stretched endlessly, from horizon to horizon and as far up as the eye could see. Despair swept through her. She leaned forward, placing her ear against the wall. From the other side she could still hear him screaming for her…

Rose awoke suddenly and realized the sound of the man crying out in pain was real. The Doctor. Was it another nightmare? She called out to him, but she didn’t hear a response. 

All of a sudden, she was overwhelmed with a profound sense of wrongness beyond him having another nightmare. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew something was desperately, desperately wrong. She struggled out of a tangle of bed sheets and ran to his room.

“Doctor?” she called. Not bothering to knock, she flung open the door and felt a blast of cold air. The door to the balcony was open, the ensuite was empty and his bed was empty. She rushed to the open door and out to the railing. He wasn’t here. Her heart tightened in panic.

A tiny sob behind her made her whirl around and she sighed in relief. He sat curled up in a ball with his back against the wall of the building, head tucked between his knees, long arms wrapped around his legs. She knelt down beside him.

“Doctor?” she said quietly. She gently touched his naked shoulder.

His head sprang up and his eyes widened in shock. “Oh,” he gasped, “oh, Rose, you startled me.” He scrubbed the tears from his face with his hands.

“Are you alright?” she asked softly and then inwardly kicked herself. Of course he wasn’t alright. “And don’t you dare tell me you are alright because it’s obvious you’re not.”

“Oh, Rose,” he said, shaking his head, and the tears began to fall again. He lay his head back on his knees and sobbed.

“Shhh, shhh,” she whispered, pulling him into a hug. Seeing him like this frankly terrified her, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. The night breeze off the bay was getting stronger and she was freezing. She imagined he was as well as his skin felt almost icy to the touch. She let go of him long enough to get to her feet, wrapped one arm back around his shoulders and pulled upwards. “Come on.”

She led him inside, shutting the door behind them, and then helped him get into bed. Grabbing a t-shirt for him to put on, she handed it to him and climbed into bed with him. While he pulled on the shirt, she pulled the duvet up over both of them. She sat back against the headboard and pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his thin frame. He rested his head on her shoulder.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

He sighed wearily. “What isn’t?” 

She waited in silence, hoping that if she was patient enough, he might actually open up.

“It’s just so hard, Rose,” he said finally, his voice breaking. “It’s just so damned hard.”

“What is?” she whispered gently, rubbing his back.

“Everything. I’m so damned exhausted all the time. I’m so bloody hot. My heart,” he scoffed, “my one heart is in the wrong place and my heart rate's wrong. My breathing is wrong. My digestion is off.” He laughed bitterly. “I’m so bloody windy that I feel like a Slitheen sometimes.”

“It’ll get better,” she promised. “Why don’t you get some sleep? We’ll talk more in the morning, ‘kay?”

He nodded. Rose scooted downwards, so they could lie flat on the bed. She listened as his breathing evened out. He was quiet for so long she thought he had drifted off to sleep. She closed her eyes, deciding to try and get some sleep herself but was startled when she heard his voice.

“I miss the TARDIS, Rose,” he whispered, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “She’s always been there, in my head, ever since I started traveling with her. No matter how far apart we were, I could always feel her there. And she’s not there anymore. I can’t feel her anymore. I feel so empty. I’m all alone.”

Her grip on him tightened. “You’re not alone, Doctor,” she whispered back, planting a kiss on the top of his head. “You’ve got me.”


	19. Chapter Eighteen

“What happened last night?” Rose asked him quietly.

It was the first thing either one of them had said to the other that morning. They were in the sitting room of the hotel suite, picking at the breakfast Rose had ordered from room service, both still in their night clothes. Since neither had felt like eating after the events of the previous night, she had just ordered toast, fruit, tea for the Doctor, and coffee for herself. She hadn’t been able to sleep, hadn’t really been able to even close her eyes, after finding him so distraught on the balcony, and she was exhausted. If she was going to be functional today, she’d need caffeine and plenty of it. Tea just wasn’t going to do it for her. She needed one of Ianto’s espressos. Or maybe three of them.

The Doctor was sitting on the small sofa, elbows on his pyjama clad knees, holding a white ceramic mug in his hands. Rose sat adjacent to him, on a matching chair, rather than next to him on the sofa so she could look directly at him while they talked. Her own mug, identical to his, was sitting on the table in front of the sofa, half empty, and she had already filled it with the strong hotel coffee twice.

Although the Doctor had poured himself some tea from an insulated carafe and added sugar and milk to it, Rose had yet to see him take even a sip. Instead, he just sat there, staring into his mug.

“I am really, really sorry about that, Rose,” he said quietly.

Deflecting the question. Why should she be surprised? “Please, please tell me,” she prodded him gently. “You told me you wanted me to be able to ask you anything, remember? When we were talking at the pond?”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

“So…”

“Well, the short answer is,” he said to her. “I had a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing, and I felt trapped, so I went out to the balcony to get some air. I used to have them occasionally right after the War, before I met you.” 

Rose nodded in understanding. She had had enough of them herself after Canary Wharf to recognize the signs.

“You know, you scared the hell outa me,” she said softly.

“I scared the hell outa me, too,” he admitted, looking at the floor. “Of course, that’s kinda the definition of a panic attack.” He said the last part lightly, in a weak attempt at humor.

“When I first came to your room I couldn’t find you,” she told him. “I looked all over. For a second there I was scared you had jumped.” She stared at him, watching for his reaction. She expected him to laugh it off, to tell her she was being silly, to tell her he was always alright.

He didn’t look at her. Instead, he took a sip from his mug and then set it next to hers on the low table in front of him.

Her eyes widened in realization and her heart began to race. “You almost did, didn’t you?”

He shook his head.

“No,” he denied, not untruthfully. 

She searched his face for some indication of what was going on in his head. “But you thought about it,” she guessed.

Dead silence. His lack of a denial terrified her.

“Oh, my God, why?” she demanded.

“This is all my fault, you know,” he said softly, still not looking at her. “All of it. You, him, Donna. I shouldn’t exist. I was never meant to exist. Not … separately. Not like this. The meta-crisis regeneration shouldn’t have happened.” 

“Donna? What’s wrong with Donna?” she asked.

“In the meta-crisis, she received a copy of my mind. A human/Time Lord meta-crisis can’t exist. Her mind was already beginning to burn up by the time they left us here. He had to wipe her mind of every memory of us in order to save her. That wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me.”

Rose stared at him in shock. She wanted to ask him how he knew about Donna, but there would be time enough for that later. There were more important issues at hand. She moved closer to him and took his face in her hands. She lifted his head up to face her, forcing him to look at her. She stared into his eyes, his gorgeous, chocolate brown eyes that were so full of pain and guilt, and tried to will him to understand her.

“You listen to me. _None_ of this is your fault. None of this is _your_ fault. You want someone to blame, blame _him_ for swanning off. He didn’t have to, you know. He didn’t have to drop us off here. He didn’t have to drop us off at all. Or blame Donna for touching the jar with your hand in it while it was still full of regeneration energy. Or blame me. I’m the one who was using the dimension cannon to get back to him. If I hadn’t done that, he’d never have gotten distracted enough on that street to get shot and he wouldn’t have needed to regenerate in the first place. Or blame me for accidentally letting go of that lever at Canary Wharf. If I hadn’t been trapped here, I never would have needed to use the dimension cannon in the first place.”

Her voice got a little louder as she got more emotional. “If you really want someone to blame, blame the Dalek who shot him. Or Dalek Caan for manipulating everything. Or that sick, twisted son of a bitch Davros. There is plenty of guilt to go around, but as far as I see it, _none_ of it belongs to you.”

“Oh, but Rose, you don’t understand…” he tried to say.

But she wouldn’t let him finish. “From where I’m sitting, if you hadn’t been created, we’d all be dead. Donna would have died in the TARDIS, Davros would have set off the reality bomb, and everything, _everything_ , in _every_ universe would have ceased to exist.”

The Doctor stared at her in wonder. He couldn’t believe it. She was so vehement in her defense of him. And _this_ him specifically, not his other self, the Time Lord in the other universe. At that moment he knew he would have fallen in love with her if he hadn’t been so completely besotted with her already. 

“Now don’t you dare do anything like this again, you hear? If you’re that upset, don’t just run off by yourself. You start feeling crazy, you come _talk_ to me, understand? We’re friends. Friends are there for each other. It works both ways. You’re there for me, I’m there for you. A shoulder to cry on. A hand to hold.” She grabbed one of his hands in both of hers and squeezed it in emphasis.

He nodded dumbly, naked adoration written all over his face. And he wasn’t trying to hide it. It was an expression she had only fleetingly ever seen before, on either Doctor’s face, so rarely in fact that she had always thought she had imagined it. Rose’s heart began to race for reasons she realized had nothing to do with the scare she had had the previous night. She quickly buried the feeling. Her feelings about him were way too confused as it was. She sighed, wondering when her life had managed to get so complicated, and then decided it had begun with the word _run_.

 

After the emotional scene that had been breakfast, both the Doctor and Rose went to their respective bedrooms to get ready to return to London. Closing the door to her room, she leaned against it for a moment, her head making a slight thumping sound as she rested it against the door. She could have lost him. She had had no idea that he was blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong. Her hands shook. She had the feeling she had come much closer to losing him than he would admit.

She needed to pull herself together, she told herself. She needed to get ready. Entering the ensuite, Rose slowly undressed, turned on the hot water in the small shower and stepped in, letting the water cascade over her. The aftereffects of the adrenalin coursing through her body due to tension and fear were still so strong she was almost shaking. She turned the showerhead to a massage setting and tried to let its pulsing spray relax her. As she slowly washed her hair and scrubbed her body, her mind returned to the previous night.

Finding the Doctor on the balcony last night had both relieved and scared her. She had been terrified when she heard him cry out and then had not been able to find him immediately. It had been such a relief to find he was safe. 

But the turmoil, the grief, he had been experiencing had been frightening both in its depth and its familiarity. Those first few days after Canary Wharf had been so hard…

But what he was experiencing had to be so much _more_ than what she had gone through. She had lost the Doctor, but she still had had her mother and her best friend when she had been stranded here. This man wasn’t the Doctor, yet somehow he was in ways that she didn’t really understand. What had he said to her on the beach in Norway? 

_Same memories, same thoughts, same everything._

Again, the enormity of what this Doctor faced struck her. He carried all the losses of the other, the loss of his planet and his people, but had now also lost his universe, his ability to travel in time and space, and the TARDIS, which was so much more than transport. Rose knew that for the Doctor, the TARDIS was at once his home, his ship, and, in some odd way she didn’t completely understand, his companion. 

More than that, in being part human, he had lost not only the ability to regenerate, he had lost something even more fundamental, his species. Rose couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would be like. 

And now, it seemed, he was also carrying the guilt of her separation from the Time Lord Doctor. And what had happened to Donna.

Wiping tears from her face, shed now for him rather than for herself, Rose was again reminded of that difficult scene on the beach and the accusations of the full Time Lord Doctor.

_He’s too dangerous to be left on his own… That’s me when we first met._

As the water continued to pound her, Rose thought back to those early days she had spent with her first Doctor. Yes, he had been a bit dangerous and erratic; the first time they had met he had blown up her job, and there had been a surprising number of explosions after that one as well. But what had really struck her about him were the terrible grief, loneliness and despair he had carried with him. She remembered the sound of his voice when he had first told her his planet was gone, and the shock and horror on his face in Utah as he recalled the death of his people.

_That’s me when we first met._

Her heart had gone out to him then, and went out to this Doctor now.

She shut off the spray and reached for a towel. Wrapping her hair in one, she dried herself off with another and got dressed, thinking about what her Doctor had said.

_That’s me when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him._

_He needs you._

And then Rose thought about herself.

She thought about how lonely she’d been, how emotionally damaged she’d been ever since Canary Wharf. And how all that seemed to be changing ever since he’d been here with her. And it occurred to her that maybe he could make her better as well. And that maybe… she needed him, too.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

When Rose finally emerged from her bedroom, dressed fairly casually and comfortably in jeans and a cotton top for the long drive ahead of them, the Doctor was already back sitting on the tiny sofa working on her computer again. He was back to wearing his blue suit again, almost as if it were a suit of armor, a barrier between him and the rest of the universe. This time he had paired it with a navy blue t-shirt and his gray trainers, and his face was an emotionless mask. 

Although she knew he heard her, he didn’t look up when she entered. She crossed the room and sat across from him, waiting for him to acknowledge her. She wondered if he were embarrassed by the rollercoaster of emotions they had both displayed both the previous night and this morning. He shouldn’t be, she thought, but he probably was anyway. 

When he finally spoke, still without looking up, it was obvious he wanted to pretend their previous conversation hadn’t occurred. Probably wanted to pretend the last night hadn’t happened either, Rose guessed. She didn’t really blame him. There were parts of the previous evening she wanted to forget as well.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I checked your email again,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t have done it, but I was looking for one from Pete. He’s having a briefing at 2pm today, and we need to be there. I didn’t read anything else.”

“Thank you,” she said in surprise. “I appreciate you not invading my privacy, although I doubt there was anything there worth keeping private. But we really do need to get you your own computer and email address. And a mobile.”

At this, he finally looked up. His face was a picture of misery.

“Aw, Rose,” he whinged. “Do we have to? You know I hate those things.”

That sounded a bit more like him, she thought in relief. She forced herself not to smile. “Yeah, I think we have to,” she said. “You really need your own computer. Mine is just not powerful enough for you, plus I need mine.”

“But an email address and a mobile?” He made a face. “I had a mobile for a while that Martha gave me, and I hated it.”

“People are gonna need to be able to reach you,” she informed him.

“But that’s the part I hated,” he said. “Besides, that’s what I have you for.”

Rose raised her eyebrows at him. “I am not your secretary, your assistant, or even your companion. I am not an answer phone and I do not take your messages. Besides,” she said, “what if I’m the one who needs to reach you?”

“Oh,” he said, as if the thought had not occurred to him. His face lit up in a manic grin that Rose recognized as one the other Doctor had used when he was trying to cover up what he was really feeling. “Well, then, I guess that would be alright. And I could call you. Maybe I should have gotten one years ago. It would have been really handy for all those times you used to wander off. Instead of spending all that time looking for you I could have just called you and asked where you were. Especially back in 1941 when I spent all that time looking for you during the Blitz. Do you know how many people I had to ask if they had seen a blonde in a Union Jack t-shirt? Got embarrassing, it did, and didn’t help anyway.”

“In fact,” the Doctor said, getting on a roll, “I should have rigged your mobile with a GPS tracker and I could have instantly found you anywhere. Instead of a Global Positioning System, I could have rigged it with a Galaxy Positioning System. No matter how far you wandered off, I would have been able to find you. Well, assuming you stayed in the same galaxy, at any rate.”

“Oh,” he continued. “And we could get special ringtones so I’d always know if you were the one calling me! That way if it were someone else I’d just not answer.”

Rose shook her head. She could tell he really didn’t want one, but she really didn’t understand what the problem was. There had been a telephone in the TARDIS. Now granted, the Doctor had almost never used it, but still.

“Which gets us back to the email account,” Rose said, trying to get back on track. “If they can email you, they don’t have to call you.”

“Well, I do like the ‘don’t have to call me’ part,” he admitted. He sighed. “I dunno. All of this just seems so…” He gestured with his hand while he looked for the correct word.

“What? Difficult? Bothersome? Onerous?” she guessed. “Domestic?”

He grimaced, noisily sucking air through his teeth. “Permanent.”

Oh. This wasn’t about technology or work or having to be available to people. This was about being grounded. Stranded. Stuck.

She reached forward and grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said. “I was just trying to be practical. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. None of this has to be permanent. I don’t want you to feel stuck.”

The Doctor looked startled.

“Stuck?” he asked, surprised at her word choice. He raised one eyebrow and began to smile, a slow wide grin.

“I dunno, Rose Tyler,” he said, drawing out her name the way she loved. “Stuck with you? ‘S not so bad.”

She blinked, recognizing her own words from Krop Tor. Her heart skipped a beat. “Yeah?” she asked.

His smile faded and he looked deeply into her eyes. The intensity of his gaze was staggering. All of a sudden Rose felt the lighthearted mood turn very serious very quickly, and she found she couldn’t breathe. 

The Doctor was overwhelmed by how suddenly the moment became fraught with meaning even as he realized he was the cause of it. His breath caught as he was struck yet again with just how beautiful she was. Her silky blonde hair shone like gold as it hung loose around her shoulders, and he felt his singular heart skip a beat as her warm, toffee-colored eyes looked into his. 

“Oh yeah,” he finally managed to say. “‘S not so bad at all. Quite good, actually.”

Mouth dry, heart racing, Rose stared at him. She felt like he was looking right into her soul. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but then she remembered disappointedly that she had told him that their last kiss had been a mistake.

He swallowed nervously. He had an almost overwhelming urge to kiss Rose, despite her comment the previous night about their last kiss. They were close enough together that he’d only have to lean forward just a bit, just a tiny bit, but he held himself back, not being certain how she would react. He watched as she licked her lips, appearing as nervous as he felt.

Suddenly, her mobile rang, and inwardly he cursed whoever had invented them in this universe.

When she made no move to answer it, he prompted her.

“Rose,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone,” he said again.

“Oh,” she said in surprise as she suddenly realized it was ringing. “Oh!” she said again. She let go of his hand and snatched it off the table. “Hello?”

Rose stood and walked across the room. While she was listening to the caller, she glanced at the Doctor and smiled at him wryly. “Yeah, I got it,” she said into her mobile. “We’ll be there. We’re leaving right now.” She rang off and tried to stifle a yawn. “That was Dad. He just wanted to make sure we got his email about the meeting.” She covered her mouth as she yawned again. “Sorry,” she said apologetically. “I guess I’m a little tired.”

He looked at her with concern. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

“I dunno. A bit.”

Obviously _a bit_ was code for not very much at all. He felt a wave of guilt. “Oh, I’m sorry, Rose.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t apologize. And I usually have trouble sleeping anyway.” She punctuated that with another yawn. “Are you ready to go? Cos we really need to get going.”

“All set.”

While Rose repacked her EPad and put her overnight bag together, the Doctor gathered everything else up. When she was ready, they headed out of the suite and down the lift. 

After the lift doors closed, Rose leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The Doctor noticed Rose was also yawning again.

“Are you gonna be okay to drive?” he asked her.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Done a lot more than drive on a lot less sleep over the last year.” 

“Somehow that does not inspire a lot of confidence in me,” he responded, and, opening her eyes, she shot him a dark look.

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated as they exited the lift and left the building. “Just need a Starbucks run before we go. I am definitely caffeine deprived.”

“Rose, why don’t you let me drive?” he said as they reached the car and loaded everything into the boot. 

“I dunno,” she said dubiously. “Can you drive a manual transmission?”

“Of course,” he said indignantly. “I am over nine hundred years old, you know, even if this body isn’t. I’ve driven all sorts of things. Plus I owned a car back in my UNIT days. Drove it all over. Called it Bessie.”

“It probably was a piece of junk,” she said, tossing him the keys. “That sounds like something you’d call a cow.”

“Oi!” he protested as they got in the car. “Bessie was a beautiful yellow roadster, and an excellent piece of engineering. I made dozens of modifications to her myself.”

“Just be careful,” Rose said, putting on a pair of sunglasses. “I’ve seen you drive.”

“Flying the TARDIS isn’t anything like driving a car, Rose. You can’t judge me by that.”

“Wasn’t talking about the TARDIS,” she said, reclining her seat. “I was talking about you driving that scooter back in 1953.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. She so rarely referred to their joint history in reference to him. Perhaps it was a sign of her subconsciously beginning to accept him for who he was. 

“Do you need directions?” she asked.

“No. Well, at least not yet,” he clarified. “I know Cardiff well enough to get us onto the M4, and then it’s basically just a straight shot to London. I might need directions when we get close to Torchwood, though.”

“‘Kay,” she nodded.

He pulled out of the car park and made his way through the city to the M4. The Aston Martin handled like a dream. He was so tempted to test it, to drive flat out and see how it handled at high speeds, but two things held him back. One, it was Pete’s car. Pete’s very, very expensive car. And Pete most certainly wouldn’t appreciate the Doctor treating it like a race car on the motorway.

And b, Rose had trusted him to drive carefully, and he wouldn’t betray that trust over a car. No matter how much fun it would be.

So instead, to distract himself, as he drove he kept up a running commentary about his UNIT days.

“… and then I ended up regenerating, right in my lab at UNIT. Was a little disoriented for a while, happens a fair amount when regenerating actually, at least it did to me at any rate, but I managed to pull myself together and ended up having to defeat a giant robot.”

“Was that before or after you met Sarah Jane?” Rose asked, yawning again. She loved listening to him talk, loved just listening to his voice, even if half the time she had no idea what he was talking about. He had a great voice. And she was very relieved that he was sounding so much more like himself than he had last night. She began to relax.

“Oh, after. Sarah Jane was actually there when I regenerated that time,” he said, surreptitiously glancing at her. He didn’t know why Rose seemed to be so accepting of his memories being his, but he wasn’t going to complain.

“Really?” she asked sleepily. She closed her eyes behind her sunglasses. The sound of his voice really was very soothing, she thought.

“Yep,” he said. “Met her during my third life.” He glanced at her curiously. “Why are we talking about Sarah Jane?”

“Dunno,” she said. “Guess cos we just saw her again.”

“Oh.” That made sense. Well, she had been a part of that whole mess with Davros and the Reality Bomb. Plus, Sarah Jane Smith, along with another companion Harry Sullivan, had been present with him when Davros had first created the Daleks. He began to relate that story to her as they approached the Severn Bridge again. By the time he finished the story, they were in England again.

“Rose?”

“Hmm?” she responded.

“I really need to talk to you about some things,” he said. “That okay?”

“Un huh.”

“Now I just want you to listen for a few minutes, alright?” he said. “Now please don’t interrupt. Anything you want to ask me, just wait ‘til I’m finished, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Rose answered quietly.

“I really need to talk to you about the meta-crisis, Rose. I need to tell you what happened during it. I’ve been trying ever since it happened, but we keep getting either off track or interrupted. Anyway, after I was shot …”

The Doctor relayed the events of the meta-crisis as best he could, starting with realizing he was about to regenerate after being shot by the Dalek, his memory of throwing the regeneration energy into his spare hand, and then nothing until he found himself coming to in the TARDIS with Donna. _You’re you!_ Donna had said. _Oh yes!_ He had responded.

“And I realized that when I threw the energy into my spare hand, I ended up throwing a portion of myself into my hand as well, which, with Donna’s touch, created, well, me. I didn’t really mean to, of course. Didn’t know it was even possible. I’m absolutely unique. Never been a meta-crisis before. Not in the history of the universe, well, either universe, any universe actually when it comes right down to it. But until it happened, right up to that point, I was part of him. In fact, I was him. Same person, same memories, same everything, right up until the regeneration.”

Traffic was beginning to slow in front of them. _Probably an accident ahead_ , he thought.

“Anyway, I’m finished talking. Bet you never thought you’d ever hear me say that,” he said with a laugh. “So if you want to ask any questions, you can.”

Traffic had completely stopped in front of them, so he slowed and came to a stop. She was awfully quiet, he thought. Well, it was a lot to process.

“Rose?” he said when she still hadn’t said anything. “Rose?”

He turned and looked at her. She was lying back in the passenger seat, mouth hanging slightly open, sound asleep.

He swore quietly, not wanting to wake her, and hit his head several times on the steering wheel in frustration.


	21. Chapter Twenty

“Rose, Rose, sorry but I need you to wake up.” The Doctor reached over to the passenger seat and jostled her shoulder a little to aid the process.

“What?” Rose slowly returned to consciousness. She had been so deeply asleep that at first she didn’t know where she was, and then she remembered she and the Doctor were driving back from Cardiff on the M-4. With a start, she realized they were nearing London. “Oh my God, sorry, I must have fallen asleep,” she said, yawning. She really hoped she hadn’t been snoring. Or drooling. She wiped her mouth with her hand, just in case.

“No problem,” the Doctor said. “You obviously needed it.”

“I guess I did.” After returning the back of her seat to an upright position, she took off her sunglasses and vigorously rubbed her face with her hands in an effort to wake up. She yawned again. “How long was I out?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “What was the last thing you remember?”

She thought for a moment. “Dunno,” she said. “I think we were still in Wales. Don’t really remember crossing the bridge.”

“Do you remember _anything_ I said to you?” he asked, slightly anxiously.

“You were saying something about a robot, maybe?” she guessed. “Oh, and maybe Sarah Jane, yeah?”

He groaned inwardly in frustration. Despite responding to him, she had been asleep most of the time he had been talking to her. She had somehow slept through his entire description of the meta-crisis. “You were asleep just over two hours. We hit traffic a while back and that slowed us up, but I’m gonna need those directions now.”

Stopping for a quick bite to eat first, at a noisy, crowded restaurant that allowed them virtually no opportunity to talk, the Doctor noted in frustration, they made it to Torchwood Four shortly before one o’clock. The Torchwood security guard, after briefly checking their IDs, and complementing them on Pete’s car, waved them through the gate. After they parked, Rose led him through the main entrance where their IDs were checked by another guard who informed them that Pete Tyler wanted to see them but was currently in a meeting.

“Now what?” Rose asked as they walked down the hall. Their IDs hung from cords around their necks and gently swayed as they walked. “We still have over an hour before the meeting. We could go to my office.”

“We should take a look at Richard Bradford’s lab,” the Doctor suggested. “Maybe there’ll be a clue to what happened to him in there.”

When they got to the lab, however, neither of their IDs would open the door, despite Rose’s security clearance, and Bradford’s assistants were nowhere to be found.

Rose looked up and down the hall to make sure they were alone. “You could always sonic it,” she said softly enough so that the CCTV, which had audio capabilities at Torchwood, wouldn’t pick it up.

The Doctor shook his head and leaned against the hallway wall. “No sonic,” he told her.

“What?” she demanded in a normal tone of voice. “Seriously? You’re kidding.”

He shrugged apologetically. “Didn’t have an extra one. Don’t normally keep a spare,” he told her. “Didn’t you notice when you took everything out of my pockets?”

She shook her head and started down the hall. She led the way in what the Doctor guessed was the general direction of her office. He noticed that the section of the building that they were currently in seemed to hold primarily laboratories. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice,” she said. “The Doctor without a sonic screwdriver. That just seems … wrong.”

“At least that is easily fixed. Well, I say easily,” he told her, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture of mild frustration. _Frustration seems to be the theme for the day_ , he thought. “It’s not really that easy to make a new sonic. But at least it’s doable. Mostly just need the parts, some time, and a place to work. And I really haven’t had any of those.” 

They turned down a hall and passed through a set of fire doors. Another hall, another set of doors and a stairwell. Periodically, they would have to pass through security doors and Rose would stop, scanning her ID to unlock them. Eventually they reached a plain door at the end of an empty corridor.

“This is it,” she said, and opened the door.

It was a tiny office, only really large enough for a desk, a filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs. Despite the size of the room, there was a cot, folded up and shoved in one corner. The rest of the office was completely clean of the typical types of clutter offices usually accumulate, no piles of paper, no stray coffee mugs, not even a half-dead potted plant. It could have been anyone’s office, or no one’s, except for one thing. On one wall, near the desk, was a cork bulletin board filled with photos. But they were impossible photos. 

There was a photo of the two of them in 1953, her in the pink skirt, pink headband and blue jean jacket, him wearing a motorcycle helmet with his pinstripes, at the block party for the Queen’s Coronation, sitting on the scooter they had given to Tommy. He remembered Rose had had Tommy take that one. Another photo, this one taken by Jackie, was of the Christmas he had spent with Rose at the Powell Estate, right after he regenerated. Both of them were wearing the ridiculous paper crowns that had come out of the Christmas crackers and were grinning like idiots. Well, he was grinning like an idiot, he thought. Rose was beautiful as always. A third was taken by a couple of strangers that happened to be walking by and were recruited as photographers by Rose. It was at the 2012 Olympics, not long after she had given him the lovely fairy cake with the edible ball bearings. 

There were over a dozen photos, some taken at significant moments, others just taken at random moments. But three of the photos truly surprised him. One was a shot taken in present day Cardiff. Another was taken in her mum’s flat at the Powell Estate. And the third was a truly beautiful photo taken at a distance of a man in a leather jacket and a woman wearing winter clothes walking underneath a frozen wave, the man’s arm protectively wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, his head bent toward hers. Their body language toward each other made them look as if they were very much in love. It was obviously taken at Woman Wept. And those three all featured his ninth self.

“How on Earth…” he asked.

“Camera phones. These,” she said, pointing out a number of earlier pictures, “were stored on the memory card of the phone Mickey kept when we left him here the first time. And these,” she said, pointing out the others, “were on the memory card of my new phone, the one I had in my pocket at Canary Wharf.”

“I had no idea you had these. I remember some of these being taken, but how…” He took the shot from Woman Wept off the wall and held it in his hand. It was one of his most precious memories of that regeneration. Make that any regeneration.

“Yeah,” Rose said, a small smile on her lips, “that’s always been one of my favorites. Near as I can figure, Jack must have swiped my mobile and taken that one. I didn’t discover it until I got here and Mickey gave me back my phone.” 

She looked back at the bulletin board. “While we were doing the dimension jumps I didn’t use this office much, but when I did, I wanted to remember why I was fighting so hard to get back. These pictures reminded me.” She paused, her mind racing through the events of the past week. Her initial anger and frustration at being left behind by the Time Lord Doctor at Darlig Ulv Stranden were beginning to fade, were slowly turning into a sadness and resignation that more closely resembled grief, but she was still upset with him. Finally she sighed. “Guess I can take them down now. Obviously I don’t need them anymore.”

“No, don’t,” he said quickly, grabbing her hand before it reached the bulletin board. “Please.” He looked down at the photo of Woman Wept that was still in his other hand, and when he spoke again his voice was low, deeper than usual, and his accent had unintentionally shifted to be slightly Northern. “You were so beautiful that day, Rose, your hair all tucked up in that silly hat you used to wear, your face all pink from the cold. And I never told you. I should have told you then, but I didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t.” He let go of her hand and pinned the photo back in place. “There’s so many things I should have told you back then.”

Her eyes widened in astonishment. _Same memories, same thoughts, same everything_ , a little voice whispered in her ear. Her brain tried to understand what that meant. _Same thoughts, same memories_. 

“I’m the same man, Rose,” he said as if he had read her thoughts, his Estuary accent returning to his voice. “Same thoughts, same memories. Same hand,” he said wryly, lifting his hand up and wriggling his fingers. He grinned. “I love this hand. This is the same hand that took yours when I first told you to run. Same hand.” He looked in her eyes, trying to will her to understand him. “Same man, Rose Tyler.”

Rose stared at him and wished she understood what he meant. He couldn’t mean it literally. There were so obviously two separate people who stood on that beach with her in Norway. And he was wrong anyway. He and the other Doctor were very alike, but they were so different as well. _He_ never told her he loved her. _He_ never would have told her he regretted not telling her she was beautiful. And _he_ had abandoned her, had abandoned the both of them.

Her mobile chirped, this time signaling a text rather than a call, and Rose sighed in frustration. She pulled it out of her pocket, thinking the Doctor might have a point about not carrying one. 

“Dad needs to see us.”

 

Pete Tyler kept three offices. One was located at the Vitex corporate offices and was designed to be impressive. Located at the top of a skyscraper in Central London with a dazzling view of the Thames and the London skyline, the office had wall to wall windows and took up an entire floor of the building. It was filled with expensive, modern furniture and original works of art. His office at the mansion had been decorated by a professional decorator, and was designed to match the look and furnishings of the rest of the house.

And then there was the office at Torchwood. Larger than most others in the building, it still was only a fraction of the size of his office at home. The bulk of the office was taken up by a government issued metal desk. Along with Pete’s desk chair, there were two other chairs that sat in front of it, and an ancient uncomfortable-looking vinyl sofa had been shoved against one wall. Instead of oak bookcases, it had utilitarian metal shelves that held tomes on scientific topics. And instead of fine works of art, the walls were filled with scientific graphs and star charts. All in all, it looked like an office for a typical mid-level government worker, rather than that of one of the richest men on the planet.

These days, Pete Tyler spent more hours on a typical day in his office at Torchwood than he did in a week in his home office or in a month in his office at Vitex.

“Sit down,” he urged the Doctor and Rose as they entered the room. “We don’t have much time before the meeting, but I do need to talk to you about a few things. First, did you learn anything in Cardiff?”

The Doctor summarized what they now believed about the alien being sentient as well as his current theory that it was his energy signature, rather than his species, which allowed him to live through the attack at the substation.

“But we need to be careful with that information, Pete,” he concluded. “I really don’t want anyone guessing that I’m not from this universe, let alone that I’m not fully human.”

“Understood,” Pete responded. “Although most of the people who work at Torchwood know about the dimension cannon project, only the people who were directly involved know anything about you.”

“And the people I worked with in Cardiff,” Rose added.

The Doctor nodded. “And let’s keep it that way if at all possible. I don’t know this world, but most planets at this developmental level have a strong xenophobic streak. If word got out I was an alien, it wouldn’t just be bad for me, it could be bad for you and your family as well.”

Pete nodded in understanding. He and Rose had had similar discussions when Jackie and Rose had first been trapped in his world. Although Rose and Jackie were both human, no one knew what could have happened if the wrong people had discovered that they were in the wrong universe, and no one wanted to find out.

The Doctor continued. “Is there any way we can postpone this meeting? Rose and I really haven’t had time to look over Richard Bradford’s research, and we haven’t had a chance to examine his lab or talk to his lab assistants.”

Pete looked over at the clock on the wall, then at his appointment calendar. “I can give you an hour,” he finally said. “But that’s all. Bradford’s research is only one part of this investigation.”

“Oh, but I think it may be the key to the whole thing,” the Doctor said, jumping up from his chair. “Ready, Rose?” Rose jumped up to follow him.

“Doctor, you can go,” Pete said, “but I need to talk to Rose about something.”

“What?” she asked. “Can’t it wait?”

“Not really,” said Pete. “There have been some serious allegations made about something that happened during your trip to Cardiff.”

“What sort of allegations?” Rose demanded.

“Doctor, you can go,” Pete said again, nodding at the door.

The Doctor looked from Pete to Rose questioningly.

“No, he stays,” she said. 

The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch as the Doctor watched the battle of wills play out in front of him. “Rose, it’s all right, why don’t I just go,” he said. As curious as he was, he really didn’t want to be here if this turned out to get a bit domestic.

She turned to him. “No, you stay,” she insisted, pointing at him. “Anything he has to say to me, he can say to you as well. I’ll just tell you anyway, and this way it’ll just save time, yeah?” 

Pete Tyler sighed loudly and rubbed his temples. “Fine, fine,” he said, giving in. “But it’s not really about either one of you. It’s about Owen Harper.”

“What?” they both said as they sat back down in their chairs.

“Someone made a serious allegation about him. I was told that when you arrived, he made some comments to you that could be construed as sexual harassment.”

The Doctor and Rose glanced quickly at each other.

“Judging by both of your reactions, I am guessing these allegations are true,” Pete said angrily. He swore. “Do you want to make a formal complaint?”

“No,” Rose said. “I handled it, and I don’t believe he’s going to do it again. Not to me at any rate.”

“But it’s not just you,” Pete said. “Harper has been pulling this sort of thing regularly for years. It may be time to get rid of him.”

“No, Dad, you can’t,” Rose pleaded. She knew that if Owen Harper lost his job, Torchwood would probably Ret-Con him because of all the classified information he knew. He had been working there long enough that he could end up forgetting whole years of his life. “That would destroy him. Besides, he is the best expert we have on alien anatomy and physiology. Well, other than the Doctor.”

“No one is irreplaceable, Rose,” Pete told her. He then turned to the Doctor. “You were there. How bad were his comments?”

“Disgusting and inexcusable,” the Doctor responded. 

“But I handled him and later he apologized,” Rose said.

“Really?” the Doctor asked, glancing at her in surprise. His mouth twisted in a slight grin.

“Yeah,” she said. “You had gone back to look at the CCTV video again and he cornered me before Gwen and I went to work on all that junk in the storage area.” She paused thoughtfully. “Funny thing is, Owen has never apologized to me before. I don’t know if he’s ever apologized to anyone before.”

She looked at the Doctor suspiciously. He was the picture of innocence itself, but she knew that expression on his face, had seen it easily a hundred times before on the other Doctor, and his previous regeneration as well. He had the slightest smirk that only she could see because she knew the expression so well. What had he done?

Pete turned back to Rose. “I’ll give him one more chance, but we’ve got to get this under control. Cardiff is a mess with him there. The only people that have been able to handle him have been Jake and Mickey, but Jake is busy with some other projects and now Mickey’s gone. Gwen just doesn’t seem to have the same influence over him. And she’s going on maternity leave anyway. And no one who is qualified seems to want to take over Torchwood Three. It’s almost as if there’s a curse on it or something.” He stood up, sighing loudly in frustration. “This isn’t over, but we’ve got much more important problems on this planet than one foul mouthed doctor in Cardiff. I’ll send someone over to open Richard Bradford’s lab for you and reprogram the lock so your own IDs will get you in from now on.”

On the way back to the lab, the Doctor and Rose discussed the situation regarding Owen.

“But who do you think told Pete?” the Doctor asked.

“That’s what I don’t get,” said Rose. “There were only the six of us who knew about it: you, me, Tosh, Gwen, Ianto, and of course Owen himself. If we take off you, me, and Owen, that only leaves Tosh, Gwen and Ianto, and I just can’t see any of them complaining to Dad.”

“Why did you automatically exclude me?” the Doctor asked with amusement.

“Because I know you,” she said. “You’d be more likely to threaten him than to tell on him.” She glanced at him and saw something that looked like a hint of satisfaction in his expression. Her eyes widened. “Oh, you did, didn’t you? You threatened him. I _told_ you not to let him get to you.”

He scratched the back of his head and looked sheepish. 

Making a noise that almost sounded like a growl, Rose shook her head and stalked off down the hall. As the Doctor followed her he heard her mutter under her breath. He thought he could pick out a few words that sounded suspiciously like “men” and “bunch of idiots” and “honestly”, as well as what might have been a long string of expletives. He hung back and decided the wisest course of action for him was probably to not say anything. Once he was certain she was finished, he caught up with her.

She glared at him for a moment, and then sighed loudly, exasperated. 

“Okay, who is left?” he asked, hoping that by returning to the question of who turned in Owen, she’d forget her irritation at him. “Let’s take them one at a time.”

“Well, I think we can pretty much exclude Tosh,” she said to him eventually, most of her annoyance at him gone. “She is very quiet, very shy, and very nonconfrontational. I just can’t see her going to Dad about this. Plus, she’s in love with Owen.”

“Really?” the Doctor said, surprised. Well, there was no accounting for taste.

“Oh yeah, and I don’t see her wanting to get him into trouble.”

“And Gwen?”

Rose stopped walking and glanced around her. There was no one else in the hall. 

“Promise not to tell anyone, yeah?” she said to him softly.

The Doctor sighed, looking pained. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to get terribly domestic?”

“Cos it is,” Rose answered quietly. She didn’t want her voice picked up on the CCTV. “Okay, when Gwen first started working for Torchwood, before she got married, she and Owen had a ‘thing’. It’s just… kind of a secret. I only found out by accident. Anyway, it didn’t last very long and it was a very long time ago. But if she reported him that could all get out and I know Gwen doesn’t want that. Especially now that she’s married with a baby on the way.”

“A thing?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Yeah, a thing.”

“What’s a ‘thing’?” the Doctor asked.

“An affair,” she clarified.

“What? With Owen?” the Doctor said loudly in disbelief. Rose shushed him and he lowered his voice. “Gwen had an affair with Owen and Tosh is in love with him? Aren’t there any other eligible men in Cardiff?”

“He can be very appealing when he wants to be,” Rose said with a shrug.

“Oh, he can, can he?” he said in a low voice. “And just how appealing is that?”

At the tone of his voice, Rose looked at him in surprise.

“Are you jealous?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice.

“What, me?” the Doctor said quickly. “Jealous of Owen Harper? Of course not. Why on Earth would I be jealous of Owen Harper? I mean, well, look at me,” he said, adjusting his suit jacket. “And look at him. Besides, I wouldn’t really have a reason to be jealous of Owen, would I?” He tried, and utterly failed, to keep a worried, needy edge out of his voice. “I mean, it’s not like someone I care about used to be involved with him or anything, right?” 

“Doctor…”

“Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, of course… I mean, seven years is a very long time… ”

“Doctor…” she said again.

“I mean, it would have been bad enough if it had been Mickey…”

“Doctor…” she repeated, slightly more loudly.

“At least I’d understand that, since you used to date him…”

“Doctor!” Rose said sharply.

“But Owen, Rose, really? He’s not even that good looking…”

“Doctor!” She didn’t want to yell, but honestly, didn’t he ever listen?

“Hmm?” He turned to her.

“I was never involved with Owen Harper. You have nothing to be jealous about.” He didn’t need to know that Owen had made a play for her when she had first started working in Cardiff. Especially now that she knew that he had already threatened him over one crude remark that was actually quite mild compared to what Owen usually said.

“Jealous, Rose?” the Doctor asked, trying to hide the relief in his voice. He failed at that as well. “Who said I was jealous? In fact, I distinctly remember saying I wasn’t jealous.”

Rose rolled her eyes. 

“Anyway,” she said, “that just leaves Ianto. Now, I know that Owen and Ianto don’t really get along too well, but with Ianto’s history I just don’t see him leveling a sexual harassment charge on Owen.”

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked. “What kind of history?”

“Ianto used to be engaged to a woman when they both worked at Torchwood One,” Rose said. “When she broke up with him he couldn’t accept it right away and she eventually filed harassment charges against him. That’s when Dad transferred him out to Cardiff. Ianto’s originally from Wales and it just made sense to send him there.”

The Doctor felt a headache coming on. He put his hand up to rub one temple. “Sounds like an episode of EastEnders.”

“Doesn’t it though?” Rose laughed, and then a thought occurred to her. She stared at him curiously. “Wait a minute, since when do you watch EastEnders?”

They had gotten to Bradford’s lab and were met by a security guard who let them in and, on Pete’s instructions, reprogrammed the door to accept the Doctor and Rose’s IDs.

Bradford’s laboratory was a long, narrow room with cupboards along one wall, and a long, granite topped workbench running down the center. The opposite wall held several computer terminals and two doors, one leading to a small office, the other to the loo. A thin, notebook computer sat on one end of the counter, surrounded by a variety of electronic equipment. Stacks of papers, coffee mugs, and a variety of small tools and more electronics were scattered about on a variety of horizontal surfaces, as if the occupants of the room had been there and had just stepped out for a moment.

“Okay, where do you want to start?” Rose said upon entering the lab. She flipped through one of the stacks of papers.

“I thought I could check on Bradford’s research while you investigate his assistants,” he said. “Who they are and where they are. And why they aren’t here.” 

“Right away, Sarge,” Rose said with a grin and a mock salute.

He grinned widely at her, delighted at her referencing another of their joint memories. “Hop to it, Lewis.”

Rose and the Doctor sat down at two of the computer terminals in the far corner of the lab. She watched as he stretched out his arms and wiggled his fingers.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Limbering myself up to prepare to type,” he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his glasses. “Honestly, Rose, keyboards? You’d think this planet would have progressed further than that.” 

“You seem to be doing alright with our primitive technology,” she said, watching his fingers fly across the keyboard.

He made a face. “This would be so much faster with a sonic. When this is all over, making a new one has to be my top priority, if for no other reason than I need one to work on our coral. Oh, this is interesting…” he said, peering intently at the screen. “I found his notes that describe the new energy he had discovered. Evidently he found it in the power cells of an alien communication device that came up through the Cardiff rift almost two years ago. Was that while you were still there?”

She shook her head. “It must have appeared there after I left.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor said, continuing to read from the computer monitor. “Anyway, he describes the energy at one point as radiating blue light. Remind you of anything?”

Her eyes widened. “That thing that attacked you at the substation.”

He nodded. “And the fluorescent lights there all seemed a bit more blue than normal. Remember? I knew that Bradford’s research was related to the disappearances somehow.” He paused as something occurred to him.

“Rose,” he asked, “if it was found in Cardiff, what was it doing here?”

“Anything found in Cardiff that seems the least bit useful gets shipped out here,” she told him. “Almost all research on alien technology is done here. Then, depending on what they find out about it, it’s either reverse engineered or archived.”

He paused for a moment, thinking. “We really need to find that communication device that came up through the Rift.” He glanced around the lab. “You think it might still be in here?” 

“Maybe,” Rose answered. “Or it could be archived down in the storage. Do you know what it looks like?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I think I’d know it if I saw it.”

“Well, unless it’s still in here for some reason, we may be out of luck,” she told him. “Torchwood currently had over a hundred thousand pieces of alien equipment of different types archived downstairs. Unless we can narrow it down in some way, we may never find it down there.”

The Doctor got up and wandered the lab, looking in cupboards and under things, while Rose continued to work on the computer. The lab was filled with both high tech and low tech equipment. One cupboard seemed to be devoted to circuit boards of all types. Another contained thin sheets of various types of semiconducting materials, as well as sheets of copper and glass. A third had spools of electrical wires and connectors. More wire littered the countertops, obscuring hand tools and a small notebook computer. Several dirty coffee mugs had been left on the countertop and the desk. After searching the lab thoroughly, the Doctor searched Bradford’s office. Not finding anything of interest, he eventually gave up and crossed back to where Rose was. He stood behind her, looking over her shoulder at the monitor in front of her.

“No luck?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said. “I actually didn’t see anything of alien origin here. Just a typically messy lab. And an even messier office. Have you found anything?”

“Not a lot so far, but you might find this interesting,” Rose said, glancing over her shoulder at him before returning to look at the screen in front of her. “When Bradford put in a request for staff, he had some very specific requirements. There was the usual stuff, had to have certain degrees, had to have at least two years of lab experience beyond the University level, but he also requested all his staff have a level 5 rating on the Armstrong scale.”

“I’m not familiar with that,” said the Doctor.

“That’s what Torchwood uses here to classify their telepathic ratings. Purely telepathic alien species rate a ten, someone psi null rates a one. Not sure what you’d rate,” she said, glancing at him appraisingly. “Typically, humans rate a one or a two.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “And he wanted all his staff to rate at a five?” 

“Yep,” Rose nodded. “Or higher. Very rare among humans. Very, very rare.”

“And odd for an alternative energies project,” the Doctor said thoughtfully.

“There’s also a staff list here,” Rose continued. “According to this, Bradford had three assistants. One was a doctoral candidate named Sean Callahan who went back to Cambridge to finish his degree about three months ago, but the other two are still here. Their names are Dr. Michael Fields and Dr. Lisa Hallett.”

“Lisa Hallett, Lisa Hallett,” the Doctor mused. “Now why does that name sound familiar?”

“I dunno why it’s familiar to you,” Rose responded. “But Lisa Hallett is the one who filed harassment charges against Ianto. She’s Ianto’s ex-fiancée.”


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

While the Doctor continued to study Dr. Bradford’s project, Rose quickly made a few phone calls. She spun her chair to face him as soon as she got off the phone.

“I talked to Gwen,” she said, sticking her mobile back in the front pocket of her jeans. “Ianto wasn’t there, family emergency of some kind. Anyway, as soon as she reaches him she’s going to have him call me.” 

The Doctor nodded absently, still staring at the computer screen in front of him. He had a look of intense concentration on his face. “According to this, Bradford and his crew did build their energy collector. I’ve found plans, materials invoices, even some memos requesting extra staff to build it. Some of these memos even make mention of visiting it for maintenance. But so far I can’t find a location for it. You’d think they’d list it here somewhere.”

The Doctor’s flew across the keyboard and he scanned the records in front of him. Rose looked on in amazement. She had never noticed before that he could type so quickly. In fact, she had never seen anyone type so quickly. As she watched him, she could see the flicker of the monitor reflected in his dark rimmed glasses.

“Ooh, this is interesting,” he said, peering into the screen. He raised his eyebrows. “What do we have here?”

“Is it a location?” Rose asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “No. It’s a memo addressed to Pete recommending that the project be shut down due to inherent dangers in regards to the energy.”

“What?” Rose rolled her chair over to stop next to his. “Who signed it?”

“Doesn’t say.” The Doctor pursed his lips. “Now why wouldn’t Pete have mentioned this?”

Rose stared at the document on the screen for a moment. “Here, look here,” she said, pointing to an icon in the corner of the screen. “It was never sent.”

“Really? Why write a memo and not sign it and not send it?” 

“Maybe he, or she, was interrupted?” Rose guessed.

“Or disappeared before he could finish writing it…” the Doctor finished.

“Doctor, are you suggesting Dr. Bradford is missing because he wanted to stop work on his own project?” Rose asked.

“Hmm,” he mused. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Doesn’t make much sense, does it? I mean, if it was _his_ project, who would want to prevent him from ending it?”

Rose shook her head. The more they investigated, the more questions they seemed to have. And the fewer answers.

“Here, let me try something,” she said. He moved his own chair over and she rolled hers in front of the monitor. She quickly typed a series of commands, but not nearly as quickly as he had, and another screen popped up. “This is the original encoding information for that memo. From here I should be able to tell who wrote it, or at the very least, tell what computer it was written on.” She scrutinized the series of numbers that had appeared on the screen. “Here it is. There’s no user code, unfortunately, so I don’t know who wrote it, but it does say which computer was used. B17234-A2.”

“Okay,” the Doctor said, “now how do we find out which computer that is?”

“The location is encoded in the serial number. The letter indicates what type of room the computer is in. B stands for the labs, A is offices, C is medical, and so on. The first number is the floor, the next two digits say which room on that floor, the next two numbers say which type of computer, and the last two indicate which specific machine. So we know from the B1 that it was a lab on the first floor.”

“Rose, we’re in a lab on the first floor,” he said, slowly smiling.

“Yep,” she said, popping the “p”. She grinned at him. “Go out the door and check which lab this is, yeah?”

The Doctor crossed to the door of the lab and walked into the hall. “Number 72,” he called. He came back into the room and crossed over to her.

“That’s what I figured,” she said. It was fun teaching _him_ something, she thought. “Now since there’s only one type of computer in here, all we have to do is find out which one is A2. It should be on a barcode stuck to the side of the monitor.” She stood up to look at the side of the monitor she was working at. “Not this one. This one is A3.”

“It’s this one,” the Doctor said, standing by the computer in the far corner. “So we know one thing. Whoever wrote that memo had access to this lab.” He returned to sit next to her again.

“And we only know of three people who had regular access to this lab,” Rose said. “Lisa Hallett, Michael Fields and Dr. Bradford himself.”

They looked at each other, trying to think of all the possible implications of that.

“Hmm,” the Doctor said, brow furrowed. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Doctor, do you think Dr. Bradford knew that his new energy source was actually an alien?” Rose asked speculatively.

“I dunno,” he said. Leaning back in his seat, the Doctor grimaced and yanked on his right ear. “The only reason I knew it was an alien was because I was in telepathic contact with it.”

Rose stared at him. Slowly she began to grin.

“What?” he asked.

“Telepathic contact?” she asked. She leaned toward him, resting her arms on her knees. “You knew because you were in telepathic contact with it.”

“Yeah,” he said. At the look on her face, he repeated himself. “What?”

“Part of the answer is staring at us in the face,” she said. “Telepathic contact. Telepathic!”

“What?” he demanded in frustration.

Honestly, for a genius, he could be so thick sometimes, she thought. “I just told you that Bradford had some really weird requirements for his assistants. They all had to be telepathic. He _had_ to have known.”

He stared at her openmouthed. She was right. Bradford had to have known. How had he missed that? Oh, she was brilliant, he thought. He grinned at her delightedly. “Excellent work, Lewis! You’ll get that promotion yet!”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, laughing in spite of herself. “You’re absolutely barmy sometimes, you know.”

“And I’ll take _that_ as a compliment,” he said, inclining his head toward her.

Rose sobered, as something occurred to her. 

“Doctor, how did they manage to have telepathic contact with it if this thing keeps on making people disappear?”

He frowned and pulled on his ear again. “Well, not every telepath is a touch telepath, Rose,” he said finally. “It’s possible that they managed to have some sort of telepathic contact without touching. It’s just very rare for individuals of a non-telepathic species like humans to have that ability.”

“How rare?” she asked him.

“Weell,” he said, drawing out the word and grimacing, “I say very rare, but it’s more, very, very unlikely. Extremely unlikely. Not completely impossible, but highly, highly improbable.”

“So basically, you don’t know how they could do it,” she stated.

“Basically, yeah,” he admitted.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

The clock on the wall caught her eye. 

“Oops, time to go,” Rose said. If they didn’t leave right now for the meeting, they’d be late. One of the disadvantages of being the daughter of the Director, she thought. She had to set an example. No showing up to work or to meetings late. No sneaking out early. Always working twice as hard as everyone else just to prove she was as good as anyone else. A far cry from the Powell Estate, she thought. No one really cared what she did there. Sometimes she kinda missed that. She quickly logged them out of the Torchwood computer system and dragged him out of the lab while he protested.

“But Rose,” he whinged. “Don’t you think I’d be more use studying Bradford’s research than sitting in a boring old meeting?” 

“Honestly?” Rose asked, looping her arm through his. “Yes, I do. But you never know. We might learn something important. And Dad wants us there. Both of us.”

He sighed dramatically, bowing to the inevitable.

 

Torchwood had several conference rooms. The meeting was scheduled for the smallest of these, which was still the size and shape of a typical classroom. The room was rapidly filling up when they arrived. Rose chose seats in the back, near the door, so she would get a better view of everyone during the meeting. As she had every time she had ever been in this particular conference room, she noticed that the armless chairs, although cushioned, still managed to be extremely uncomfortable. The Doctor dropped into the chair next to her, immediately putting his grey trainers on the back of the seat in front of him. The woman in the chair in front of Rose turned and glared at him and Rose stifled a giggle.

“Behave,” she whispered to him, swatting his arm.

He made a face at her, but put his feet down.

Each of the walls of the conference room had large, built in computer monitors, roughly the size and shape of flat screen TVs, all displaying maps of London, one map for each day since the first of the disappearances. Areas affected by power outages were highlighted in yellow, the last known locations of missing persons were indicated by bright red dots. Each dot was located within a yellow area, indicating that there was a high probability that the outages and the disappearances were related. The Doctor noticed that the bulk of the early disappearances were located near the substation where he had been attacked, but that more recent disappearances had spread farther and farther away from that area.

Rose looked around the room. All told, there were about thirty people there, mostly department heads and team leaders. With Bradford’s disappearance, Rose knew both Michael Fields and Lisa Hallett were expected to attend the meeting. After working for Torchwood for nearly seven years, she knew almost everyone there. Michael Fields didn’t appear to be there, but… She poked the Doctor in the arm.

“Look, over there,” she said to him, pointing across the room. “That’s Todd Richards, Dad’s assistant. And the woman who just sat down in back of him? That’s Lisa Hallett.”

The Doctor looked to where Rose was pointing. A thin, young man in his early twenties, Pete’s assistant was wearing a striped Oxford shirt, dark trousers and round glasses and his light brown hair looked to be in need of a cut. He held a black EPad in his lap and was currently typing into the touch screen. To the Doctor’s surprise, the woman behind him was the woman Pete had introduced him to the night they had toured the Torchwood compound.

“I know her,” the Doctor said. “I met her. Pete introduced us on Saturday night. But she said she was studying weaponry, not alternative energy. Would she be involved in two different areas of research here?”

“I dunno,” Rose said thoughtfully. “Maybe. I haven’t really been involved in the research end of Torchwood. Well, except for the dimension cannon, and that was really classified under special projects, not research.”

“And Michael Fields isn’t here,” Rose continued, still looking around the room. “I wonder why.”

“Perhaps he has something to do with all of this,” the Doctor suggested.

In the front of the room, Pete Tyler was bringing the meeting to order.

Over the next hour, the Doctor decided staff meetings should be classified as a form of torture under the rules of the Shadow Proclamation. And after the fifth person got up to deliver a fifteen minute report, which was identical to each of the previous reports and could easily have been summarized in less than a minute, he changed his mind and decided that staff meetings should be added to Dante’s seventh circle of hell. So far he had learned nothing new, although he had discovered he was extremely tempted to begin using the phrase ‘stupid ape’ again.

Rose glanced at him and sighed. It didn’t take telepathy to figure out the Doctor was extremely bored. Between tapping his foot, drumming his fingers on his knee, and shifting in his seat, he managed to be in constant motion. He was fidgeting so much that if he had been Tony, she would have suggested a trip to the loo. 

Eventually, while slouching in his seat and tapping his foot on the floor, the Doctor looked around the room analyzing the timelines of people just to relieve the tedium. Many of the people in the room, who happened to be bureaucrats, had extremely simple timelines with very few branches. Evidently they did nothing in particular in their lives and made very few significant changes in their lives. They decided on a destination, set a course, and stuck with it for their whole lives, never changing, never varying. The Doctor had always thought it a bit sad when he met people like that; there was so much that was incredibly interesting and wonderful about the universe, any universe, that it was definitely worth at least a few side trips.

He glanced up at Pete, talking at the front of the room. Wondering if it was an invasion of privacy, not noticing that it was something he hadn’t been concerned about with the others, he glanced at the other man’s timelines. As he expected it might, his timeline got somewhat murky around the time the Doctor had arrived in this universe. Time Lords couldn’t really see their own timelines clearly, indeed it was a real struggle to trace one’s own timeline at all, and the timelines of people with whom they were closely involved were often obscured as well. 

Out of idle curiosity, he began tracing it backwards, something he rarely did. To his surprise, he found that Pete’s primary timeline had ended decades earlier. It hadn’t been particularly noticeable because the branched-off portion of his timeline that he was currently living on had grown so strong over the years it had replaced his primary timeline in appearance. 

Looking at Pete’s timeline, he suddenly realized the source of the oddity he had noticed in Owen and Tosh’s timelines in Cardiff. While in Cardiff, he had noticed their primary timelines had ended, indicating they were dead. Currently dead. But not dead here. Dead in his primary universe.

The Doctor felt a sense of disquiet. In all his travels in time, he was always meeting people who had already died, so to speak. When he first met Rose, Charles Dickens had been dead more than a hundred years before Rose had been born, but when they went back to 1869 Cardiff there he was, alive and big as life. It happened every time he traveled in time. But traveling between universes felt different somehow. At this moment, Pete Tyler was dead there, and alive here. He had known that when he had met him, and so hadn’t noticed any odd feelings about it. But with Owen and Tosh he hadn’t known, and so had had that strange, niggling feeling in the back of his mind when he saw them.

And in glancing over at Lisa Hallett, he had that same sense of niggling awareness, that somehow her primary timeline, the one associated with his home universe, had ended well over a year earlier. Several years earlier, actually. But there was something different about her. Something odd beyond just an odd timeline. It was as if her current timeline had somehow been tangled, wrapped up in a competing timeline that was somehow obscuring hers. Weird. But before he could give it much more thought, Pete called on them to give their report. 

Before he could jump up and start talking, Rose stepped on the Doctor’s foot and shook her head. He looked at her questioningly.

_Let me_ , she mouthed, and stood up.

Rose stood up and spoke from her seat, rather than walking to the front of the room.

“We believe the disappearances were as a result of an alien attack and are somehow related to Richard Bradford’s research.”

The occupants of the room, who had been, up until that point, having a difficult time staying awake, turned to stare at her. The room began to buzz with people whispering to each other.

Rose continued loudly enough to be heard over the din. “One of the people who was attacked survived and reported sensing a presence telepathically during the attack. We believe it was an alien, and that the alien is sentient.”

“Are you sure?” asked an older man from the front of the room. With a start, Rose recognized him to be Frank Collins.

“Yes,” she answered. “We are absolutely certain.”

All of a sudden, some of the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place in the Doctor’s mind. Energy creatures, Bradford’s energy collectors, even the missing stars. He knew he didn’t have all the pieces yet, but the picture that was forming was a nasty one. Taking advantage of the noisy room, he turned to Rose.

“Rose, why did you come back to get me?” he said quietly.

Rose stared at him, puzzled. She had no idea what he was talking about. Ever since they had been back in Pete’s World, they had been together almost constantly. And then, with a start, she suddenly understood him. The Doctor was referring to her trips to parallel worlds using the dimension cannon.

“What was the first thing that happened, the first thing all of you noticed,” he prompted her again.

“The darkness. The stars were going out.”

“Mention it,” he said with a jerk of his head to the rest of the room.

She looked at him, mystified. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.

“Just do it.” When she hesitated, he prompted her. “Go on.”

“As you all know,” Rose said to the room at large, after another puzzled glance at the Doctor, “I was involved in the dimension cannon project. A project that was begun because the stars were going out. And, despite the success of that project, some of the stars are still gone.”

“And what happened to all the planets around those stars?” the Doctor asked, loudly enough to be heard by the entire room.

Pete addressed the room. “For those of you who don’t know, this is Doctor John Smith, and he and Rose will be heading this investigation from here on out.”

Frank Collins answered the Doctor’s question. “We assume the planets were all destroyed.”

“And what happened to all the inhabitants of those planets?” the Doctor asked.

Collins again. “They must have been destroyed as well.”

Rose stared wide-eyed at the Doctor, who stared back.

“But what if the inhabitants weren’t all destroyed?” Rose asked.

He nodded. And now the Doctor seemed to be speaking only to her. “And what if some of them were coming here?”


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two

“What if they were coming here?” the Doctor repeated. “Bradford was building energy _collectors_. He was expecting to _collect_ more of them.”

“Doctor, are you suggesting it’s an invasion?” Pete asked from the front of the room.

“Possibly,” the Doctor answered. “At this point there is no way of knowing for certain. But there are too many disappearances over too large an area for this to be the work of one creature.”

“You heard him,” Torchwood’s Director addressed the room. “We start investigating this as alien attacks and as a possible prelude to an invasion. And the aliens are … what?”

“Energy creatures which emit blue light in the visible range of the spectrum and are currently using the power grid for transportation and to attack. However, I do not believe we should assume they are limited to that. Rose and I encountered a life form a while back which was similar in some ways, but was able to utilize the television transmitters. We should assume that this life form may be able to do something similar.”

“Are you talking about the Wire?” Rose asked him.

“Yes,” the Doctor told her.

“Do you think that that’s what this is?” she asked, concern evident in her voice. She had been attacked by the Wire and they each had a unique horror of it.

“No,” he assured her. “I don’t believe so. We never did find out what the Wire’s actual species was, only that it originally had a body and was absorbing brain wave patterns to try to become corporeal again. This creature seems to be absorbing entire people, not just brain waves, and there’s no evidence that it is anything but a creature made of energy.”

“Well, if that is all,” Pete said, looking at the Doctor for confirmation, who nodded at him. “The rest of the meeting will be a strategy session to figure out how to stop these creatures.”

As the rest of the people in the room began to gather into small groups, in part to strategize, but mostly to gossip about the turn of events, the Doctor crossed the room to join Pete and Frank Collins. Rose started to follow him, but was intercepted by a field agent team leader she knew who wanted an introduction to the Doctor.

“Maybe later, Ryan,” she told him distractedly. “We’re kinda busy at the moment.” She looked around. In the crowd of people milling around the room she had lost track of where the Doctor had gone.

At the front of the room, Pete turned to the Doctor. “Interesting meeting,” he said. “But why would they be coming here?”

“Humans have been broadcasting their planet’s location for decades,” the Doctor answered. “Literally. Ever since the first radio broadcasts. Wireless transmissions have been essentially giant adverts for the planet. And it’s just accelerated exponentially with television, satellites, mobiles, anything operating wirelessly. You’ve… we’ve,” he corrected himself quickly, remembering both his newfound partial humanness as well as his need to hide his alien identity from anyone who might be listening, “been basically putting up a giant sign saying ‘beautiful planet, ripe for the picking’. To a species that may have just lost its own planet, that’s gonna be very tempting.”

Troubled by the Doctor’s words, Pete took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “And how does all this fit with Bradford’s disappearance?”

“Not sure yet,” the Doctor admitted, “but someone wrote you a memo last week recommending that Bradford’s project be shut down.”

“I never received that,” Pete said. 

“According to Rose, it was never sent, and it wasn’t signed. But if Bradford himself wrote it, someone who wanted the project continued might have wanted to get rid of him.”

“But wait,” Pete said. “That would mean there is a traitor in Torchwood. But you said it was an alien invasion.”

“It may be both,” the Doctor replied. He looked soberly at Torchwood’s Director. “An alien invasion, and a traitor in Torchwood.”

 

Rose saw the Doctor talking to her dad and Frank Collins at the front of the room. She started to cross the room to join them when she remembered Lisa Hallett. Lisa was one of the people they needed to question about Dr. Bradford. Looking around, she noticed that Lisa was still seated where she had been during the meeting. She was bent over and appeared to be tying her shoelace, but she was clearly listening to the men at the front of the room. Rose couldn’t hear what the Doctor was saying, but at something he said, Lisa started and glanced up at him. Slowly she got up and made her way toward the door. Rose watched as Lisa glanced to see if anyone was watching her. She then ducked out of the door.

All of Rose’s investigative instincts grown out of years of working for Torchwood were on alert. There was just something about the way Lisa was acting, she thought, something about the way she had been eavesdropping on the Doctor. And something about the way she was carrying herself. Nothing she could put her finger on, but just something… odd. Following her out into the corridor, Rose saw Lisa round a corner. She seemed to be headed to her office. Rather than try to question her in the hall, Rose decided to just follow her there.

 

Back in the meeting room, the men were still talking and hadn’t noticed either Lisa or Rose leaving.

“Are you certain there’s a traitor?” Collins asked.

“No, I’m not,” the Doctor admitted. “But I don’t like coincidences, and there seem to be too many of them. Until we know otherwise, I think it would be safer to assume there is a traitor here.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Pete asked. “We can’t just let these aliens keep killing people.”

“Well, I don’t know if it will work, but there’s one thing we could try,” the Doctor said, scratching the back of his head. “The aliens are currently using the power grid to attack people. It’s possible that if we shut that down, we can buy ourselves enough time to figure out what’s going on.”

“You want to blackout London?” Pete asked incredulously.

“We shouldn’t have to blackout the _whole_ of London,” the Doctor said. “Only the areas where there have been disappearances. And maybe a bit around them.”

“What good would that do?” Collins asked. “I thought these aliens were causing the blackouts.”

“They are,” the Doctor answered. “Or at least they seem to be. When they attack, they seem to be creating a surge of electrical power in the lines. The surges overwhelm the system and cause a blackout. But the aliens, whatever they are, have to get from place to place. It’s just a hunch, but I’m guessing that they are using the flow of electricity like a railway car. Shut that down…”

“And they’d be stuck wherever they are until the power gets turned back on,” Pete nodded. “Just one problem, though. Harriet Jones will never give us permission to blackout London. It would bring the city to a standstill.”

“If she’s anything like the Harriet Jones I knew, she might,” the Doctor answered. “But I wasn’t exactly suggesting you ask for permission.”

Pete slowly grinned.

“Pete,” the Doctor continued. “Rose said Bradford had two assistants, Michael Fields and Lisa Hallett. Rose noticed that Michael Fields wasn’t here today. Why is that?” 

“I don’t know,” Pete said. “He should have been.” He called to the security guard standing by the door. “Filbin, find out where Michael Fields is, please.”

The guard turned and spoke into the two-way radio mike clipped to his collar. After a few minutes, Filbin turned back to the Director. 

“Michael Fields has not reported in to work since last Wednesday and he has not been answering his mobile.”

“Why wasn’t I notified of this?” Pete asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Filbin answered.

 

Lisa Hallett quickly walked down the corridor, periodically stopping to look around her before continuing. Rose followed at a distance, trying her best to be inconspicuous. She wanted to confront Lisa in private, and for all that the hallway seemed deserted at the moment, it certainly wasn’t private. What was it that Lisa had heard the Doctor say that had made her exit the conference room so quickly? Whatever it was must have been important for her to have the reaction she did.

To Rose’s surprise, instead of heading to either the stairwell or the lift to get to her third floor office, Lisa Hallett turned down a corridor and headed in the direction of the labs. Rose followed as she saw Lisa stop at the door to Bradford’s lab and waved her ID at the sensor. When the door unlocked, she entered the lab and Rose quickly entered after her.

“Why were you following me?” Hallett turned on Rose angrily.

“Who says I was following you?” Rose asked, trying to put the other woman on the defensive. “The Doc… I mean, Doctor Smith and I are investigating the disappearance of Dr. Bradford and this is his lab.”

“Oh yes, wasn’t that terrible?” Lisa’s tone abruptly changed to one of sympathy. “I’ve been so worried about him, the poor dear. Did you find out anything?” As she spoke, she wandered casually to the far side of the workbench. Opening cupboards and drawers, she began to tidy up, putting away things that had been left out on the counter.

“No, not really,” Rose said slowly. “Were you here on Wednesday when he disappeared?”

“Michael and I both were,” Lisa answered. “We were both working late that night. Michael Fields is Dr. Bradford’s other assistant. Michael and I both left for dinner, and when we got back Dr. Bradford was gone. I thought he had just stepped out for a bit, but when he never came back, we checked with security and they said he had never left. After searching for him for hours, we finally realized he was missing.”

On the surface, Lisa Hallett was acting exactly as a concerned friend and employee should, properly worried and sympathetic. But all of Rose’s instincts as a Torchwood agent were on alert. There was just something about her, something about her tone perhaps, or maybe it was her body language, but Rose was convinced something about her was off. Not to mention the way she had seemed to be sneaking out of the meeting and the furtive way she had been walking down the corridor. For an instant, Rose wondered if she should get the Doctor, but then inwardly derided herself. She had been handling situations like these for years without the Doctor’s help, not the Time Lord Doctor or the Doctor in this universe, and she could handle this situation as well.

“So you and Michael Fields went to dinner together then?” Rose asked, trying to get the timeline straight in her head.

“Oh, no,” Lisa responded. “I had some errands to do, and when I got back here, Michael was already here.”

Lisa Hallett was wandering the lab, seemingly still tidying up, but she didn’t seem to be accomplishing much. Rose could have sworn she had moved the same stack of papers three times, and adjusted the stools at the workbench twice.

“So do you know where Michael Fields is?” Rose asked. “Because I didn’t see him at the meeting.”

“No,” Lisa said, perhaps too quickly, Rose thought. “I haven’t seen him since Wednesday.”

Rose watched as she saw the other woman put some pens and pencils into the desk. She appeared to have taken something out of the drawer at the same time, sticking it into her pocket, and Rose wondered what it was. Whatever it was, it was very small.

“Is that unusual?” Rose asked. 

“Not really,” was the answer. “Even though we both work for Dr. Bradford, we both have our own separate projects. And we never see each other outside of work.”

This conversation, for it couldn’t really be called an interrogation yet, was going nowhere, Rose thought, and decided to press it further.

“Lisa,” she said, “my friend, Doctor Smith, he said he met you the other night with my father. But he said you were working on weaponry. I thought you were working on the alternative energies project with Dr. Bradford.”

 

Lisa Hallett stiffened. Sticking her hand in her pocket, she turned slowly around and faced Rose.

“No,” she said, in a voice that was much too casual, “he must have misunderstood. I don’t work on weapons. My research is purely in green technologies.”

“Really? Because my friend, John, he seemed pretty certain.”

“Anyone can make a mistake,” Lisa said. She walked toward Rose, slowly closing the distance between them.

“Yeah,” Rose agreed. “But the thing is, my friend John doesn’t make mistakes like that. So if he said you were working with weapons when he met you, then that’s what you were doing.”

Lisa pulled a small spray vial out of her pocket and Rose realized her mistake. The other woman was still far enough away that Rose didn’t get a full dose of the drug she was sprayed with, but it was still enough to work. As she fell to her knees, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket. She tried to type into the tiny keypad. For some reason she couldn’t quite figure out, her fingers wouldn’t work well enough to ring or text her dad.

“And they say you are so smart,” Lisa said contemptuously. She took the phone out of Rose’s hand.

Rose tried to put her hand out to break her fall to the floor, but she couldn’t seem to make her arms work properly. Her hand slid out from under her, and she found her face on the floor. She couldn’t even manage to turn her head and look at the other woman. Instead, as she looked straight ahead, all she could see was under one of the desks. There was dust accumulating under it, along with more than one stray pen, and she thought she really needed to get the janitorial staff in here to do a thorough cleaning. Then it occurred to her what an odd thought that was under the circumstances. Why was she on the floor again?

Lisa pulled her own mobile out of her pocket. “Code orange,” she said after she dialed. “And I’m going to get rid of my mobile. Next time I ring, it will be on a burner phone.”

As everything went hazy, Rose wondered if the Doctor had noticed she was gone yet. And then Rose’s vision went black.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

The small conference room at Torchwood Four was slowly emptying as people began to return to their own offices and labs. In the front of the room, Pete Tyler and the Doctor sat next to a conference table. The Doctor sat backwards on a chair, arms resting on its back, hands propping up his chin. After Frank Collins had left, having receiving a message that someone had been injured analyzing some sort of weapon in one of the labs, the Doctor and Pete had begun discussing the plans for Dr. Bradford’s energy collectors.

“And the problem is,” the Doctor said in mild irritation, “there was no address listed so I can’t even go out and take a look at them.”

“It’ll be in the records somewhere. It’ll just take some time to find it. It might be faster just to ask Lisa Hallett or Michael Fields where they’re located,” Pete answered. “One of them is bound to know.”

At the mention of the two scientists, the Doctor scratched his head thoughtfully. “Which of the scientists here would replace Richard Bradford on the alternative energy project? Would that be Michael Fields?”

“No, actually that would be Lisa Hallett,” Pete answered. He looked around the room. “Where is Lisa, anyway?”

The Doctor looked around the conference room. Lisa Hallett wasn’t there. And Rose was nowhere to be seen either. 

“Where’s Rose?” he asked. He had a sinking feeling he knew where Rose had gone.

“Filbin, come here please,” Pete called to the security guard. “Have you seen my daughter?”

“She followed Dr. Hallett out of here about a half hour ago,” he answered.

Pete and the Doctor stared at one another. Pete pulled out his mobile and rang Rose. He shook his head. “She’s not answering.” He left a message for Rose to ring them.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” the Doctor said.

Pete agreed. “Filbin, please tell security to look for Rose Tyler and Dr. Lisa Hallett and to notify us as soon as they are found,” Pete ordered. The security guard spoke into his radio mike. 

“We’ll find them,” Pete told the Doctor with more assurance than he felt.

Jaw clenched, the Doctor nodded.

 

“Isn’t there any other way of tracking them?” the Doctor asked in frustration two hours later. They were now in the security office where the security staff was coordinating the search efforts and computer technicians were handling the electronic surveillance. 

After not being able to locate either Rose or Lisa Hallett, Pete had had security do a building wide sweep for the two women, which had turned up nothing. He had eventually had it expanded to a search of the entire Torchwood compound, which also had yielded nothing.

And there was an even more disturbing possibility that Pete hesitated to mention, but as the hours had gone by, he finally felt he had no choice.

“Doctor, we have to consider the possibility that whatever caused the other people to disappear made Rose disappear as well.”

The Doctor looked at him sharply and his heart seized in a flash of panic. “No,” he said after a moment. “Absolutely not. Pete, she may be missing, she may be hurt, but she’s alive. I know it. She has to be.” He wouldn’t even consider the alternative. Because the alternative was unthinkable.

Pete just hoped the Doctor was right. 

“Where are we in tracing Rose’s mobile’s signature through GPS? Or the electronic code on their IDs?” the Doctor asked. 

“We’ve tried tracing the code on their IDs, but we’re not getting a clear signal,” answered Roberts, the technician at the computer. 

“What could cause that?” Pete asked.

“The electronics embedded on the backs of the cards are very delicate. There are any number of ways they could be damaged. Even bending the cards in half could do it,” the technician answered. “And we’ve been having trouble getting a signal from Rose’s mobile as well. She may be in an area that is heavily shielded, or doesn’t have strong mobile coverage. We have been attempting to triangulate what little signal we have on Rose’s mobile phone right now. Narrowing it down as we speak.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice held a note of surprise. “Sir, it’s registering as being within this building.”

“Show me where!” the Doctor demanded. A map of the building appeared on the screen. Roberts highlighted the location and the quickest route to it from the security office. 

The Doctor flew from the room, Pete and two security guards following in his wake. To his infinite frustration, he had to stop and wave his ID across the sensors next to two sets of security doors on his way to his destination.

The location turned out to be a locked utility room. The Doctor pounded on the door while the security guards attempted to open it. For some reason, the electronic locks weren’t working properly.

“Rose, Rose!” he shouted. There was no answer.

Eventually the guards managed to unlock the door. They entered the room and then stepped out of the way to allow the Doctor and Pete to enter. The room was empty except for janitorial equipment: a mop in a metal bucket, an industrial vacuum, a cart which held a rubbish bin and cleaning supplies. The Doctor dug through the bin and discovered Rose’s mobile phone buried deep at the bottom along with two damaged Torchwood IDs. Rose’s, and Lisa Hallett’s.

 

It had been four hours since anyone had seen either Rose or Lisa Hallett, and they were no closer to finding her than they had been initially. Despite a careful examination of the security camera footage, Torchwood’s computer analysts were unable to find any visual evidence that either Rose or Lisa Hallett had left the building and there were no computer records of either Dr. Hallett or Rose passing through any electronic security checkpoints. 

The only evidence that had been discovered was a janitor, arriving for the night shift, who remembered seeing Lisa Hallett driving out of the Torchwood compound, alone, just minutes before Pete had sent security to look for the women. 

While security had been analyzing the CCTV, the Doctor had searched the offices of both Lisa Hallett and Michael Fields. They each had small offices near Rose’s own. He had been hoping to find a glimmer of anything that could indicate where Lisa had taken Rose, an address book, a memo, something that might indicate the location of a hideout or possibly where Bradford had had his energy collectors built.

The search of Lisa Hallett’s office had yielded nothing. It had looked completely unoccupied. Only a few spare pens and paperclips were the only indications the office had ever been used by anyone. And the only things the Doctor learned from Michael Fields’ office were that he was evidently a fan of the Cardiff City FC, a football team, as Fields had easily a dozen posters of them hung in his office, and that Fields had a weakness for chocolate, as evidenced from a half empty 5 lb. bag of mini chocolate bars stowed in a desk drawer.

After discovering her ID and mobile at the bottom of a bin, they now believed Rose’s disappearance was a kidnapping. At first, Pete had not been convinced that Lisa had had anything to do with Rose’s disappearance, believing it to be a coincidence that Lisa had left the building within minutes of Rose following her. It wasn’t until they had found Lisa’s ID alongside Rose’s, as well as Lisa Hallett’s mobile, discarded and with the memory card missing, in a ditch near the gate to the Torchwood compound, that convinced him she was involved somehow.

“How did Lisa Hallett get Rose out of the building without anyone seeing her?” Pete demanded of Arthur Davies, the head of security at Torchwood Four. “Can you answer me that? How did she know which corridors would be empty so she wouldn’t be seen? And how did she get through all of the security doors if she didn’t use her ID? And how did she manage to get out of here without being caught on CCTV even once? What the hell’s the point of having all this high tech equipment if we can’t even prevent a kidnapping in our own building?”

 

 

Later, Pete watched as the Doctor stalked around Bradford’s lab.

“Rose is in the hands of that, that… madwoman and there is nothing I can do!” the Doctor exclaimed angrily. He stopped and picked up a spare tool that had been left out on the workbench. Pete thought he looked as though he was going to fling it against the wall, but instead he set it back down and began pacing again. “I swear, Rose sets new standards for jeopardy friendly,” he said, peripherally aware that he hadn’t called Rose jeopardy friendly since his ninth incarnation. “She always has, ever since I met her.”

He turned and glared at Pete. “If she hurts Rose….” The Doctor didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. For a moment the Doctor looked so coldly furious, so frightening, so completely and utterly alien, that Pete instinctively backed up.

The Doctor felt his heart racing and as if his stomach was in knots. He was terrified for Rose. Rose had been in serious danger, held captive and even kidnapped, countless times before while they had been traveling together but somehow he had always managed to maintain his composure and rescue her. But now…. He didn’t remember ever feeling this helpless, at least not since Canary Wharf. 

Was it his new human DNA that was making him so much more emotional, so much more desperate? As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he immediately discounted it. Maybe it was having an effect on his emotions, he reasoned, but it certainly wasn’t causing them. Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf was the difference, he decided. He had _lost_ her at Canary Wharf.

He stopped and pounded his head with his fist. “Think, think, think! Where could Hallett have taken her? We checked the compound, we checked her flat…” He stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Let’s go over this again. What about her family?”

“Only child, never married, parents are dead,” was the answer. “Her only living relative is a grandmother, who for the last ten years has been in a nursing home.”

“Where did the parents live?”

“They were divorced. Her father died during the war with the Cybermen. Her mother was killed in a car accident three years ago. Neither owned a house. And her grandmother’s home was sold to pay her living expenses.”

“What about the CCTV in the city?”

“Doctor, Torchwood has access to all the CCTV cameras everywhere in London. Whether it is a video camera at the stoplights or a security camera taking stills at the ATM machines, we’ve got it. And there is no record on any of them of Rose, Dr. Hallett, or her car.”

“No computer record here, and no record anywhere in the city,” the Doctor said in disbelief. He ran a hand through his hair. “How is that even possible?”

“We’ve got a team looking into it even as we speak. But she may not be in the city,” Pete reminded him. “By now she could be halfway to Glasgow. Or Paris, for that matter. And that’s assuming they are traveling by car.”

The Doctor groaned loudly as his mind raced over the possibilities. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I believe they’re still here. Somewhere,” he said as he began pacing again. “Bradford’s project is here, and this _has_ to be connected to that. She wouldn’t just leave it. She probably had a contingency plan just in case things went a bit wrong and had already set up a hide-out. Just because I can’t find a record of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. That’s where they’ll be.” He stopped and tugged at his hair in exasperation.

“Did anyone ever manage to get ahold of Ianto Jones?” he asked after he had turned back to Pete.

“Yes,” Pete responded. “Jones hasn’t had any contact with Hallett since he moved back to Cardiff. He has no idea where she could be or what she could be up to, but I’ve sent for him anyway. He may know something and not realize it.” He paused. “Doctor, we’ve been through all of this before. Both Torchwood and the police are searching for Lisa Hallett. We have a description of her car on the wire. We’ve got our staff out looking for Rose, we’ve got the police looking for her, we’ve got her picture on the news…. Everything that can be done is being done.”

The Doctor growled and ran his fingers through his hair again, making it stand straight up, in an unconscious gesture of frustration that was becoming familiar to Pete, and then began to stalk about the room again. He stopped and kicked the workbench and then winced at the pain. Pete winced in sympathy.

“Doctor,” he said, trying to reassure him, “Rose has been working for Torchwood for more than six years. She is an extremely capable young woman who has gotten herself out of worse spots than this.”

The Doctor stopped and tried to calm himself. “Oh, I know,” he said, turning to the other man. “I know. Did she ever tell you about the time she ended up hanging off a barrage balloon during the middle of the Blitz? Or turned to stone in ancient Rome? How about the time she faced down a werewolf? Oh, I could tell you stories…. But she’s probably already told them all to you.” He walked over to a stool next to the workbench and sank down on it. “You know, Pete, she was barely nineteen when I met her, and one of the first things she did after we met was save my life. Knew her less than 24 hours and there she was, swinging from a chain like Tarzan, risking her life for mine. And from then on, in one way or another she saved it each and every day we were together. Sometimes just by being there. When I lost her….” His voice trailed off and he looked at Rose’s stepfather anxiously.

“I can’t lose her again, Pete,” he said after a moment. “I just can’t.”


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

“Where is he? Where the hell is he?” a voice demanded loudly from out in the hall. Despite the door to the corridor being closed, the voice could be heard in the lab as clearly as if its owner was in it.

 

Sitting at the workbench in the lab, the Doctor and Pete Tyler looked at each other and cringed. 

 

“Jackie,” they said in unison.

 

Jackie Tyler burst into the lab, a woman on a mission. She looked as if she had just gotten out of bed and had thrown on the first track suit she could find. Her visitor’s ID swung wildly back and forth on a cord around her neck as she crossed the room and beelined straight for her husband. The security guard who had escorted her through the halls entered behind her looking mildly apologetic.

 

“I’ll take it from here,” Pete told the guard. “Would you mind unlocking the door on your way out? Mrs. Tyler will need to be able to come and go without people unlocking the door for her all the time.”

 

The guard nodded, and Pete turned to his wife. Jackie immediately began berating him.

 

“Peter Alan Tyler, where is our daughter?” she demanded, hands on hips. “And why are you in here instead of out there looking for her?”

 

“Jacks,” Pete said, “what are you doing here? Where’s Tony?”

 

“Did you really think I would stay home while my only daughter is missing?” Jackie asked incredulously. “I came as soon as you rang and told me. And Tony is with Mrs. McDonald.”

 

“The housekeeper,” Pete told the Doctor, who nodded.

 

“Jackie, everything that can be done is being done,” Pete tried to assure her. “We will find her.”

 

Jackie whirled on the Doctor.

 

“And you…” she said.

 

Outwardly, the Doctor stood motionless, his face an expressionless mask; inwardly, he cringed again, his stomach a knot of guilt.

 

“Come ‘ere,” Jackie said more gently. To his shock, she pulled him into a hug. “Don’t you worry. Rose is gonna be alright. She can take care of herself. Do you really think she’d let a little thing like being kidnapped separate the two of you after she just found you again?” 

 

The sound of voices arguing slowly dragged Rose back to consciousness. They sounded far away, and she couldn’t tell what they were saying. As she became more aware of her surroundings, she felt a wave of nausea and she realized her head was pounding. She wished the voices would just shut up so she could go back to sleep.

 

“She’s coming to. It’s too soon, I’m not ready yet. Give her another dose,” said one voice sharply. 

 

“No, it’s too dangerous. Too much could kill her.” That was someone else, Rose thought.

 

“Getting squeamish now, are we? Give her another dose,” the first voice ordered.

 

Rose tried to open her eyes. Her vision swam in front of her. Beige, everything looked beige. She closed her eyes tightly and then reopened them, but it didn’t help. That slight motion caused a shock of pain to go through her head and the disorientation it caused brought on another wave of nausea. She fought not to be sick. The pounding in her head was threatening to split her head in two. Forcing herself to fall back on her Torchwood training, she knew she needed to figure out where she was and what was going on. Trying to concentrate on what was in front of her, she saw two… people, probably, and probably the ones who had been arguing, but she couldn’t make out anything about them, not their genders, not even race or hair color. Across the room, she saw something that looked like a body lying on the floor, but it was so blurry she couldn’t be certain.

 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, give it to me. I’ll do it.” That was the first voice again.

 

Rose saw a blur of motion and then felt a cool mist being sprayed in her face. Her vision again faded to black.

 

 

“So what are you doing to get my little girl back, Doctor?” Jackie asked him.

 

The Doctor shook his head. He was sitting at the workbench, head in his hands, having absolutely no idea what he could be doing.

 

“Jacks, there’s nothing the Doctor can do,” her husband pointed out. “We know who took her; it’s just a matter of finding her at this point.”

 

“Yeah, but why’d she take her?” Jackie wanted to know. “Neither of you have explained that to me.”

 

“Jacks,” her husband answered. “Near as we can figure, Rose found out something about Lisa Hallett or this situation, or maybe Lisa just thought she did.”

 

“Yeah, but what?” Jackie asked. “What could have been so important that would have been worth kidnapping Rose over?”

 

The Doctor’s eyes widened, and he whirled to stare at her openmouthed. He could have kicked himself. In his worry for Rose, he had been overlooking the obvious. And then for the second time, the Doctor said something he never thought he’d ever say, something he would have sworn he’d never say even once.

 

“Jackie’s right.”

 

Jackie’s jaw dropped in amazement and even Pete looked surprised.

 

“We really don’t know why she was taken,” he continued. “We still don’t know exactly what Hallett’s involvement in this is. If I can just figure that out, if I could figure all of this out….” His mind raced as he considered the possibilities. He stood up and began to pace. “Pete, first I need to be able to access the maps showing the locations of the disappearances, you know, the ones from the meeting? And I need a chart that shows all the stars that are missing. And I’ll need some equipment.” When he described what he wanted to Pete, the other man nodded.

 

“I’ll take you down to the archives. You may see what you need there.” Pete got on his mobile and made the arrangements for everything the Doctor had requested. “And get one of those new interactive computer monitors up here, too,” he said. 

 

Jackie looked at the Doctor. 

 

“What can I do?” she asked, fully expecting to be told to stay out of the way.

 

“Quite a lot, actually,” the Doctor responded, to Jackie’s surprise. “In Rose’s office, she has a bulletin board on the wall. Go and get it and bring it up here. Please,” he added gently. “I need some inspiration.”

 

As she headed out the door, the Doctor called after her. “And Jackie, is there any chance at a cup of tea?”

 

In a neighborhood not far from Griffith Street, a stretch of row houses stood, scheduled for destruction. They, and the buildings surrounding them, had been built in a flurry of post-War construction more than a half century earlier and were now more than showing their age. In fact, they had been falling down around the ears of the lower class residents who had lived there most of their lives. The zoning commission of the local estate had recently decided to condemn the whole area, reclassifying it to become part of a modern, upscale shopping and housing complex on the edge of the revitalized district, and the residents had been forcibly relocated to newer housing two miles up the road.

 

Despite the residents being evicted, one of the row houses, the one on the east end, was not empty. In an upper bedroom, sitting at a table left behind by the previous occupants, Dr. Lisa Hallett typed into a thin laptop computer. An additional one sat on the table near her. Although she currently was working in the Alternative Energies Department at the Torchwood Institute, she had advanced degrees in astrophysics, electrical engineering and computer design and had aided in the design of the upgrade of the computer system at Torchwood. She could take over their computers from anywhere in the world. She didn’t even need to hack the system. She only needed to use the backdoor she had built into the system when it had last been redesigned. And there was nothing that Pete Tyler could do about it.

 

Hallett scoffed. Tyler didn’t belong at Torchwood, she thought to herself. He was nothing more than a third-rate political hack whose main claim to fame was selling energy drinks. He was only given the position for the small role he played in fighting the Cybermen. He no more belonged in charge of an organization like Torchwood than her senile old grandmother did. That was no more evident than in his decision to appoint that boyfriend of his daughter’s, John Smith, to lead the investigation into the disappearances. What kind of a name was John Smith anyway? Obviously an alias. And he called him ‘Doctor’, as if there weren’t at least a hundred others at Torchwood with multiple doctorates. He was probably no more a doctor than Tyler was.

 

Lisa Hallett entered the Torchwood computer system for the second time that evening. The first time she had linked into the system to wipe out any records of her sudden departure from Torchwood on the CCTV and to delete records of her drive through London. This time she searched the personnel records for Dr. John Smith. No such employee existed. She searched under ‘new hires’. The last employee hired was a nineteen year old girl who worked with the custodial staff in Glasgow, and she had been hired three months earlier. She widened her search to include any and all references to anyone called John Smith in Torchwood history. She also did a Boolean search for anyone who was simply known as ‘Doctor’ at Torchwood, excluding anyone who used the title with any other name. There was a brief medical file on a John Smith: normal heart rate, lung capacity, a brief notation of the need for corrective lenses. The only other reference to John Smith was a request on the same day to the department in charge of falsifying documents for Torchwood agents to provide identification in the name of John Smith as a Torchwood agent, a Torchwood Institute chief scientist, a Deputy Chief Inspector of the Greater Manchester Police, an aide to Congresswoman Mary Todd, and, oddly, a Professor of Astrophysics at Cambridge. She shook her head. Other than the University identification, these were the types of identification that were typically provided to agents.

 

There had to be something else.

 

She read further into the file. At the bottom there was a link to an attached file. She opened it.

 

“Oh, yes,” she whispered. She knew that John Smith was an alias. Why else would Pete Tyler be requesting a birth certificate, a driver’s license, and a National Insurance card under Smith’s name?

 

She noticed that one other file, the only result in reference to her search for ‘Doctor’, had popped on the screen. It was coded Confidential, Restricted, and Top Secret. Although her clearance wasn’t that high, that was irrelevant since she wrote the code. She opened the file. As she read, her eyes narrowed. It was a report on an alien called ‘the Doctor’ and his role in aiding the Preachers in their defeat of the Cybermen.

 

Her fingertips flew across the keyboard. There was something else for Dr. John N. Smith. A deleted file from Torchwood Three. As if deleting a file would stop her.

 

It was a medical file. Her eyes widened as she scanned the information in it. She hadn’t had any medical training beyond the required first aid training she had received when she joined Torchwood, and she hadn’t had any biology since her undergraduate days, but even she knew what human DNA looked like. And what it didn’t.

 

When she had finished, she pulled out the new burner phone she had just purchased and typed in a number that only she knew. 

 

The other number was answered before the end of the first ring.

 

“We have a problem,” Lisa said.

 

 

Located in the lower levels of the main building of Torchwood Four, the archives were a long chain of rooms interconnected by a set of corridors and secured by both technology and armed guards. Most people at Torchwood didn’t have the clearance to enter the storage area; instead they had to submit requests, either in writing or electronically, to the archive staff to examine any item that had been stored in the archive. In fact, the only place at Torchwood Four that had higher security than the archives was the room that held the dimension cannon.

 

Pete Tyler, Director of Torchwood, led the way through the secured doors and past the guards, the Doctor closely following him. 

 

“Now what are we doing again?” he asked him.

 

“Richard Bradford and his crew built some energy collectors,” the Doctor answered, “I’m guessing to somehow ‘collect’ the aliens that have been causing all the disappearances. I’m hoping that there will be some trace of the aliens on them. If there is, and if I can build a strong enough alien detector, I may be able to track them down. I’m hoping that Lisa Hallett’s hideout is nearby, and if it is, then maybe we can find Rose.”

 

“That’s an awful lot of ifs,” Pete said dubiously.

 

The Doctor shrugged. “At this point, it’s our only lead.” 

 

“So what exactly do you need?” Pete asked.

 

“Something that can detect energy at specific wavelengths, specifically at the wavelengths associated with blue light. Or any type of equipment that can detect aliens, of course. I built one, but it wasn’t nearly powerful enough, and it wasn’t specific to energy creatures.” As the Doctor answered, he looked around him. They were walking through an area that held tall, metal utility shelving. Although a number of items were in secured boxes made of a clear, Plexiglas-like material, others were just lying on the shelves out in the open, and all were labeled with a name of the item, a code to identify the item, and a brief description of what it did. He picked up things at random and wasn’t surprised to find that most of the time, the description of each device he touched in no way matched the actual function of the item in question.

 

_Rose was right_ , he thought. Torchwood’s storage archive was enormous, and if there was some sort of rhyme or reason to the way things were stored, it wasn’t immediately apparent to him. He could be down here weeks and not find what he was looking for. On the other hand, the shelves were filled with both the useful and the completely, utterly useless. There was plenty of the latter on the shelves, but there was enough of the former that he could build what he needed many times over, and just from the items in this one aisle alone. He pointed out several objects to Pete and the other man left to get some staff members to bring the items up to Bradford’s lab. 

 

After Pete was gone, the Doctor continued to explore. His eyes widened when he saw one tiny object tucked into a corner on a bottom shelf two aisles over. It only had a numerical code identifying it; evidently Torchwood scientists had either not bothered to try and classify it, or had been unable to. Ironic, of course, because it was easily the most useful, and most powerful, item down here. Taking a look around to make sure no one was watching, he surreptitiously picked up the item and placed it in his pocket.

 

When the Doctor and Pete Tyler arrived back at Bradford’s lab, it was a scene of organized chaos. Technicians were everywhere, setting up what looked like flat screen televisions on every free space on the walls. Others were rolling in something that looked like a large glass window on a stand. 

 

“We’re putting up the same setup in here as we had in the conference room,” Pete told him as they stood in the doorway. “I thought it might be helpful to view everything on separate computers rather than have to switch between screens.”

 

“Thank you, Pete,” the Doctor said gratefully.

 

“She’s my daughter, Doctor,” Pete responded. “Let’s just get this thing solved.”

 

The Doctor nodded resolutely.

 

When he walked into the room, the Doctor began coordinating the technicians’ efforts like the conductor of a symphony orchestra.

 

“No, not there,” he told one man. “Over there, on that wall. And this should go here.” He looked around the room. “From where I’m standing, I want to be able to see everything at a glance.”

 

“Are these computer monitors?” the Doctor asked another of the technicians as the man was struggling to hang one on the wall next to the door to the office.

 

“Actually, no,” was the answer. “These are completely self-contained computers, similar to large scale EPads, only much more powerful. They have touch screens and we are setting them up to be integrated together wirelessly. You will also be able to access the Torchwood main computer network from these.”

 

“Excellent,” the Doctor said. “And that?” he asked, pointing to the stand that held the window-like object.

 

“That is brand new,” Pete said, coming up behind him. “We call it a smart board. Half computer, half electronic bulletin board. It’s designed to be used to display an extensive amount of data and allow a user to interact with it and manipulate it much more easily than even a touch screen. For example, satellite imaging of London.” Pete turned it on and brought up one of the maps of London on the display. The Doctor walked to the other side of the smart board. Through the map, he could see Pete standing on the other side. He walked back to stand next to Pete and work with the board. With just a touch, he was able to rotate the map, zoom into locations he wanted to see, and then withdraw far enough away that all of southern England and Wales could be seen.

 

“Now I know all of this must seem very primitive to you…” Pete said apologetically.

 

“Well,” the Doctor started, and then saw the look of almost nervousness on Pete’s face. “This is perfect,” he said. “Just exactly what I need. Thank you.”

 

A young woman rolled in a trolley full of both the equipment from the archive as well as some used and outmoded equipment he had also requested from Pete. “Is this what you want, sir?” she asked.

 

“Yes! Brilliant,” he told her. “Just put the whole trolley next to the workbench. What’s your name?”

 

“Sally,” she replied shyly.

 

“Well, Sally, I’m the Doctor. Just the Doctor. Or Doctor Smith,” he corrected himself. “Or just John. But never sir. Alright?”

 

She nodded and rolled the trolley in place.

 

Pete Tyler’s assistant, Todd Richards, poked his head in the doorway to the lab. “Sir, security at the gate reports that Ianto Jones has just arrived.” 

 

“Excellent,” Pete responded. “Get him in here.”

 

“Oh, and sir?” Richards continued. “I thought you might want to know. The driver of a lorry belonging to the Burpee’s Baby Formula Company accidentally lost control of his vehicle and managed to ram into the Griffith Street substation.” Richards tried to hide a grin. “No one was hurt, but the local news is reporting that a quarter of London is without power.”

 

Pete grinned. Maybe things were starting to look up.

 

“Where do you want this?”

 

The Doctor turned to see Jackie had returned. She was carefully carrying the small corkboard full of Rose’s photos. He gently took it from her hands. As he held it, he allowed himself the luxury of getting lost in his memories for a moment.

 

Jackie saw him stare at the photos. For just a second, she saw an expression full of both longing and fear cross his face. He looked so lost without her daughter. And suddenly her eyes widened as Jackie realized the truth.

 

“You’re him, aren’t you,” she said softly, shock evident in her voice. “I mean, you’re not just a parallel him or a duplicate of him, you’re really, really him, in some sort of weird, alien way.”

 

He laughed wryly at her description of the meta-crisis. It seemed to make as much sense as anything he’d been able to come up with. 

 

“Yeah, Jackie, I am,” he said. “I really am him. In a weird, alien way.”

 

“Does Rose know?” she asked, wondering why Rose hadn’t said anything.

 

He shook his head.

 

“Well, when _exactly_ were you plannin’ on tellin’ her?” she demanded, hands on hips. “I think she needs to know.”

 

“It’s not like I haven’t been trying, Jackie,” he said defensively.

 

She shook her finger at him. “You tell her the instant we get her back, or I will,” she threatened.

 

The Doctor inwardly cringed. He couldn’t imagine a single scenario where Jackie telling Rose would end well for him. “I will,” he promised.

 

“We’re gonna get her back you know, Doctor,” Jackie said, trying to convince herself as much as she was him.

 

“Yes, we are.” There was a steely determination in his voice, and Jackie believed him.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

“Is she coming to?”

 

The voice sounded to Rose like it was coming from far away, almost like it was coming from under water.

 

“I think so. It should be wearing off by now.”

 

That was a different voice, Rose thought.

 

“It’s about time. I don’t have all night. And with the power out pretty soon we won’t be able to see in here.”

 

That was the first one again.

 

“Well, it’s your fault. You’re the one who wanted to give her that last dose. I told you not to.”

 

Rose’s mouth felt so dry. She tried to lick her lips, but realized she couldn’t open her mouth.

 

_Drugged. I must have been drugged_ , she thought. _But when? Where was I?_ The staff meeting. She remembered seeing the Doctor talking to her dad and… Frank Collins? She just couldn’t remember for certain. Her head was pounding.

 

“Come on! Wake up!”

 

Rose’s body jerked as she felt someone slap her face. She winced in pain and forced her eyes to open. It took a moment for her vision to come into focus. Two figures stood before her. The first one was a man with sandy brown hair and was a little younger than she was. He seemed to be fairly tall, but she really couldn’t be sure from where she was seated. His Oxford shirt and blue jeans didn’t hide the fact that he looked like he spent quite a bit of time in the gym.

 

The other one was Lisa Hallett.

 

Lisa seemed to have changed out of what she had worn to the meeting, a dressy blouse and trousers, into jeans, a sweat shirt, and expensive trainers. As Rose realized that, the rest of her memories returned to her in a rush. Lisa had been acting suspiciously so she had followed her out to try to talk to her. There had been the confrontation in Bradford’s lab and then Lisa had sprayed some sort of drug in her face. She had passed out, and when she had come to, Lisa had somehow managed to tie her up and carry her unseen to the car park. At least she must have done. All Rose really remembered was coming to while being shoved into the boot of a car and then Lisa drugging her again.

 

“You didn’t need to hit her,” the young man protested. Lisa Hallett ignored him.

 

So it had been Lisa who had hit her. Instinctively, Rose tried to swing her arm up to hit her back, but her arm wouldn’t move. She jerked in her chair in an attempt to get up, but the whole chair moved with her. She looked down at herself. She was tied around the waist to an armless wooden chair, her arms uncomfortably forced behind the back of the chair and somehow fastened together at the wrists, ankles… taped to the front legs of the chair with what looked like some sort of heavy duty industrial tape. She wanted to call Lisa a filthy name, but her mouth still wouldn’t open. She could tell it was taped shut, could feel the heavy tape sticking to her mouth and cheeks.

 

Lisa Hallett reached over and roughly ripped off the tape covering her mouth.

 

“Ahhhh!” Rose gasped at the sudden pain, and swore at her.

 

“Now, now, temper, temper,” Lisa responded. “There’s no need to be crude.”

 

Rose looked around the room. From what she could see, it appeared to be either a small disused bedroom or office. There didn’t appear to be much in the way of furniture, only the chair she was on and possibly a couple of others, not counting whatever was directly behind her. With a rush she remembered seeing someone lying on the floor earlier, but she didn’t see him, or her, anywhere.

 

“Where are we? Why am I here? What’s going on?” Rose demanded.

 

“I’ll ask the questions if you don’t mind,” Lisa responded. “First of all, what do you know about my project?”

 

“Your project?” Rose stared at her in disbelief. “Your research project? The alternative energy project? That’s what this is about?”

 

“Yes, of course,” Lisa responded. “Come on now, I know you’re not stupid. You and that friend of yours, John Smith was it, were discussing it at the meeting today.

 

“I don’t know anything about your project,” Rose lied.

 

“Come now. Of course you do. You basically said you did during the meeting. I just want to know how much. And you needn’t lie. I shall be able to tell if you are lying.”

 

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “I saw your psi rating. You’re good, but it doesn’t mean you can just read my mind. Torchwood does offer some mind shielding training, you know. If you work there you must have gone through it yourself.”

 

“Oh, you might be surprised at what I can do. But my psi rating is just part of the story,” Lisa bragged. “My empathic rating is much higher. You see, I don’t have to read your mind to see if you’re lying. I can just read your emotions. For instance, right now, I can tell that despite you being angry, you are getting worried. Why is that, I wonder? Could it be you have something to hide?”

 

“No,” Rose said coldly.

 

“No?” Lisa asked. “I think you do. I think both you and your friend, what was it again, John Smith? I think you both have something to hide. And if you want it to stay hidden, I think you need to cooperate with me.”

 

 

 

“Director Tyler?”

 

At the sound of his name, Pete Tyler turned toward the door to the lab. Ianto Jones stood in the doorway. To Pete’s surprise, Ianto was accompanied by Owen Harper.

 

On the surface, the two men from Cardiff couldn’t have looked less alike. Jones, holding himself so straight that he was almost at attention, was dressed meticulously in a grey three piece suit and tie. Harper, wearing a black leather jacket over jeans and an open-necked blue Oxford shirt, was slouching in the doorway beside him. Those who knew them, however, would have been able to recognize a look of concern in Ianto’s serious expression, and an identical level of concern underneath Harper’s usual smirk.

 

“What’s the meaning of this?” Pete asked Torchwood Three’s doctor. “I asked Ianto Jones to come. What are you doing here?”

 

“Director Tyler,” Owen said, “you can’t think we’d alljust stay there and sit around while Rose is missing. I’ve come to help.”

 

“With Gwen Williams pregnant and the two of you here, that leaves Torchwood Three severely understaffed,” Pete said pointedly.

 

“Director Tyler,” Owen replied, “with all due respect, Cardiff can just sod off for a bit.”

 

Director Tyler raised an eyebrow at the Torchwood doctor. “Dr. Harper, that really isn’t your call.”

 

“No, it was Gwen’s,” Owen answered curtly. “She’s currently the head of Torchwood Three, and she agreed that we both should come. The rift has been fairly quiet recently, the weevils haven’t been causing trouble for a couple of weeks, and Rose is in trouble. We’re needed here.”

 

“And Owen’s right,” Ianto said, amazed that he would ever utter those words in his lifetime. “Cardiff can sod off while we get this straightened out.”

 

Pete looked from Owen to Ianto and back again. “As Torchwood’s Director I have to object to leaving the Cardiff office so understaffed,” he said, pursing his lips. “But as Rose’s father… I thank you for coming.” Pete turned and surveyed the controlled chaos of the room. “Doctor, Jackie,” he called. “This is Rose’s mother, Jackie,” he said, introducing her to the two men from Cardiff. He put his arm around his wife.

 

“Thank you both for helping us try to find my daughter,” she said.

 

The Doctor turned when he heard Pete call him. When the Doctor spotted Rose’s friends in the doorway, his face lit up and he crossed over to them.

 

“Thank you for coming,” he said sincerely, shaking Owen and Ianto’s hands in turn. “I know how much it will mean to Rose that you came.”

 

“We will both do whatever we can to help,” Owen said.

 

“Brilliant!” the Doctor said in relief. He could use the help, especially from people Rose trusted. “Ianto, I need you to look into the backgrounds of Richard Bradford, Lisa Hallett, Michael Fields and Sean Callahan. They were all involved in an alternative energy project here. In fact, the lab we’re in is Bradford’s lab. I need to know anything you can tell me about them, anything at all.”

 

“Yes,” said Pete, “right after we question _you_ about Lisa Hallett.”

 

Ianto looked uncomfortable but nodded.

 

“I also need to narrow down our search parameters to locate Rose,” the Doctor said.

 

“I can help with that as well,” Ianto said. “Tosh and I were discussing this before we left, and she gave me some ideas.”

 

“What can I do?” asked Owen.

 

“How well do you know London?” the Doctor asked.

 

“I grew up here,” he answered, and the Doctor grinned.

 

“Then I need you to analyze the data on these maps here.” The Doctor waved his hand at the wall. “All the recent disappearances have been charted on them. Bradford built some energy collectors as part of an alternative energy project and I have reason to believe that those energy collectors may be related to the disappearances. I need you to figure out where they are. And while you do that… I’m gonna build a new alien detector.”

 

 

 

Rose stared at her, trying to keep her emotions under control so that Lisa wouldn’t be able to sense them. “I don’t know what you think you know,” she said, “but my friend John and I aren’t keeping any secrets.”

 

“Really?” Lisa asked, amusement in her voice. She walked behind Rose. When she came back in sight she was carrying another chair. She moved it in front of Rose and sat down on it. “What about that trip to Cardiff that you just took? You see, I know all about it. I know that your friend John had Owen Harper examine him, and I saw the results of that examination. Quite… enlightening. But what I found really interesting is what I read in a quite different file entirely.” Lisa smirked at her. “It wasn’t about a _John Smith_ at all. It was about someone called, what was it, the _Doctor_?”

 

Rose tried to remain completely motionless, but despite her best efforts, her breath caught and she felt her heart rate speed up. The other woman’s mouth twisted into a cruel grin and her eyebrow rose.

 

“There we go. The autonomic nervous system. Look at you. I just mention the Doctor and your heart rate is going up. You’re feeling nervous, scared even, and… something else.” Hallett’s eyes narrowed. “What is that? Could it be attraction? Ooh, I think it’s more than that. So he isn’t just your friend, is he? I didn’t think he was. And I don’t think you want everyone to know what I know about him.”

 

“You know, this is all very fun, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rose tried to sound bored. “And I don’t know anything about your project.”

 

“You know you’re going to have to answer my questions eventually,” Lisa told her. “I’m playing nice now, but I don’t have to. I can play a bit rough instead if you like. And Torchwood has such interesting drugs these days. Veratised, Ret-Con… And of course, perichloridol. You’ve had several doses of that already, haven’t you? And those are just the nice ones. Some are positively nasty.”

 

“We don’t have any Veratised, Dr. Hallett,” Rose heard a voice say from somewhere behind her. “We’d have to sneak into Torchwood Four to get some.”

 

Rose turned around as far as she could. In the corner, she saw the man from before. He had been so quiet she had forgotten he was there.

 

Lisa swore. “No,” she said finally, after a long pause, “there is another way. Sean,” Lisa said, “I think it’s time to show our guest to her room.”

 

So that must be Sean Callahan, Rose thought. Wasn’t he supposed to be at Cambridge?

 

And as Sean moved toward Rose, Lisa sprayed her again with the perichloridol.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six

Rose awoke again, completely disoriented. Her body ached all over and whatever she was on was really hard. And cold. Suddenly she realized she was lying on the floor of a darkened room. Cement, she thought. Definitely a different room than before. From where she lay, she could see several shallow windows placed high up, near the ceiling. A cellar, then. The windows provided barely enough light to see a door on the opposite of the room. She tried to sit up and then realized her hands were tied, or taped, securely behind her back. Her ankles were fastened together as well. She tried to yawn but for some reason her mouth wouldn’t open. _My mouth must be taped shut again_ , she thought angrily. _Damn._

 

She glanced around the room. _Not much here_ , she thought. She could barely make out a furnace in the corner of the room and perhaps a table and chairs on the far side of the room. _If it is a table and chairs_. Her head was pounding so hard she could hardly see straight and she was nauseous again. _Not a good thing with tape over my mouth_.

 

After a few minutes of lying still on the floor, Rose’s head began to clear. As she thought about her situation, she was absolutely furious with herself. She had been lulled into a false sense of security because she was in Torchwood itself and had made a rookie mistake. She had followed a possible suspect without backup, she had confronted a possible suspect without backup, and she had let her guard down enough to be overpowered by a possible suspect. She was lucky that Lisa had just drugged her. If Lisa had had a gun, she could be dead right now.

 

Slowly, Rose’s eyes began to adjust to the light and she surveyed the room around her. On the opposite wall, there was indeed an old fashioned kitchen table and chairs, like the kind that old Mrs. Roder had in her kitchen back at the Powell Estate. She twisted around to see the other direction. Nothing. Nothing in the room except the furnace and the table and chairs.

 

Whatever it was that was binding her wrists was beginning to cut into her skin. Based on how her wrists felt, it could have been duct tape but it also felt a bit like twine. A filament tape? She twisted around to look at her wrists and ankles. She couldn’t see her wrists, but her ankles definitely looked taped.

 

Rose tried to remember if she had anything in her pockets that could cut the bindings. She couldn’t think of anything. And she could tell her mobile wasn’t in her pocket, either, because if it had been she’d be able to feel it.  Suddenly she had a vague recollection of Lisa Hallett taking it from her in the lab. Not good. Not only that, but Lisa did work at Torchwood. She certainly was smart enough to check her pockets before dumping her here, and to know the standard places agents were trained to keep things.

 

But Rose had traveled with the Doctor for a long time. And, more significantly, with Jack Harkness. While traveling with the Doctor, Jack had occasionally given her lessons on how to get out of difficult spots, due to his extensive experience breaking out of prison cells. He had also shown her how to hide weapons and where he kept his own, which were always in unusual, and sometimes embarrassing, places.

 

She had never gone to the extremes of Captain Jack, but ever since she had joined Torchwood, she always carried a weapon. Even if it was only a tiny, little knife.

 

 

 

In the small office connected to Bradford’s lab, the Doctor stood leaning against the wall, arms and ankles crossed, and watched the men in front of him. Pete Tyler sat behind the desk and was scrutinizing the man sitting across from him. Ianto Jones was shifting nervously in his seat as he looked from the Director to the Doctor and back again.

 

“You aren’t under investigation, Ianto,” the Doctor tried to assure him. “We just need to know everything you can tell us about Lisa Hallett.”

 

“In particular, we need to know anything that wouldn’t turn up in a standard investigation or in an employee dossier,” Pete said. “An employee dossier, I might add, that is remarkably incomplete.”

 

“Sir, Lisa went through and edited it on at least two occasions that I know of,” Ianto told him. “And I believe she probably did it periodically as a matter of course.”

 

Pete Tyler stared at him. “That shouldn’t be possible. All of Torchwood’s employee files are designed to have a non-overwriting feature.”

 

“Sir, Lisa helped write the last major computer upgrade. She bragged about having created a back door to the system that no one knew about, in addition to the typical one programmers usually design. She is perfectly capable of changing any records in the system she wants to.”

 

“Even the CCTV records?” Pete asked. “They’re supposed to have a non-overwrite feature as well.”

 

“Director, Lisa is brilliant,” Ianto told him. “She has an IQ well over 200. I don’t think there is anything beyond her capabilities. Particularly with computers.”

 

The Doctor and Pete Tyler exchanged glances.

 

“We also need to ask you about Lisa Hallett’s family,” Pete said, turning back to Ianto. He looked at the EPad in front of him where her employee dossier was displayed. “It says here that her father, Jacob Hallett, was killed during the war with the Cybermen. Is that accurate?”

 

“Actually, it would be more accurate to say he was one of the first who was processed,” Ianto told them.

 

The Doctor and Pete exchanged glances again. Ianto meant Lisa’s father had been converted into a Cyberman. This was an especially emotional subject for Pete, because his first wife, the parallel version of Rose’s mother, had also been one of the ones converted.

 

“What about her mother, Christina Hallett?” Pete said, changing the subject. “Was she killed in an auto accident?”

 

“Christina Hallett was killed in an auto accident,” Ianto confirmed. “But she wasn’t Lisa’s mother. She was her step-mother. Her real mother was Rhonda Flemming, and she went missing seven years ago.”

 

“What?” Pete demanded.

 

“What is it?” the Doctor asked, glancing quickly at him. “Who is Rhonda Flemming?”

 

“Rhonda Flemming was one of the chief scientists working for Cybus Industries,” Pete told him. “She worked in IT. She helped design the Cyberman computer interface for John Lumic. But the Torchwood charter states that anyone who worked for Lumic or Cybus Industries can’t work here. And that goes for family members, too.”

 

Pete’s eyes narrowed at Ianto. “And you knew it. And you said nothing. I could have your job. Hell, I should put your arse in jail for treason.”

 

A look of fear crossed Ianto’s face, but he didn’t deny it, he didn’t try to defend himself.

 

“Pete,” the Doctor reminded him quietly, “a great many people have secrets. Ianto’s not the only one.”

 

Pete Tyler glanced sharply at him. He sighed loudly and nodded once, thinking about Rose. And the Doctor. And Jackie.

 

“Sir,” Ianto continued, “you should know Lisa wasn’t always like this. What happened to her father and her mother… it changed her. Lisa’s mother was going to leave Cybus industries when she realized how horrible the Cybermen were, and when she went missing, Lisa believed that Lumic had had her mother killed. She became very vocal with me about how she believed the government should have done more to stop Lumic earlier.”

 

“Is there anything else?” the Doctor asked him.

 

“Yes,” the younger man responded. “Rhonda Flemming used to be involved with Richard Bradford. That’s how Lisa knew him.”

 

“Really?” The Doctor knew this was important somehow, but not why. _Rose would know_ , he thought. Not only had she lived in this world for years, but Rose intuitively understood people and relationships. It was one of the first things he had admired about her. And he found it the height of irony that the one person who could help him the most in finding her was Rose herself.

 

 

Rose rolled onto her stomach. She arched her back as far as she could and bent her knees so that she could grab her shoes with her hands. It took her three tries, but she was finally able to remove a small knife from the sole of her right shoe, the whole length of which from handle to tip was only two inches. It was sharp as a razor blade and tiny enough to entirely fit into the heel of her shoe. It didn’t set off any metal detectors since it was made of a special high-density ceramic that had been developed by Torchwood, and the rubber of the sole of her shoe also helped protect it from damage.

 

Holding it between the tips of two fingers, she slowly sawed at the restraint. It took some doing, but finally she was able to break through the tough layers of tape. She winced as she pulled the tape off her wrists, taking fine hairs and skin cells with it. After her wrists were free, she ripped the tape from her already sore mouth and sawed the tape from her ankles.

 

For a moment she stopped, rubbing her wrists and ankles. Thinking of Jack had brought up a whole range of emotions she didn’t have time to deal with right now. Pushing all but one, gratitude, firmly out of her mind, she silently thanked Captain Jack Harkness, wherever he was, for one long afternoon in the TARDIS spent learning how to free herself using a knife, to the Doctor’s endless amusement, after Jack had tied her up.

 

Rose slowly stood up and nearly cried out in pain from the pins and needles sensation in her feet as the nerves and blood circulation slowly returned to normal. Her head pounded.  She felt a wave of dizziness and rested one hand on the wall for support. Her vision began to go black and she slowly sank to the floor. Taking slow, deep breaths, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the wall behind her.

 

After a few moments of sitting with her back against the wall, Rose felt enough better to get up and try the handle of the door.

 

Locked. And the windows were too shallow for her to escape through them. Well, that would have been too easy, but it was worth a look. _Nothing ventured, nothing gained_ , she thought.

 

Sitting back down on the floor, her thoughts returned to Jack Harkness. Did he know that she was the one who had caused his immortality? If so, he hadn’t seemed upset with her when she had last seen him. Perhaps he knew and had forgiven her. She certainly hoped so. During their travels together she had begun to look up to him like a big brother, a slightly mad, sex-crazed big brother perhaps, but a big brother. And, although he had seemed interested in her at first, after he had begun traveling in the TARDIS with her and the Doctor, he had, for the most part, been a perfect gentleman and had treated her like a kid sister.

 

Smiling to herself, Rose remembered all the crazy stories he used to tell while they were traveling together with the Doctor. Even then, as naïve as she had been, she hadn’t believed them, or at least not most of the embellishments he had added. Still, she suspected there had been a grain of truth to most of them, and she decided to try to apply Jack’s rules for what to do when captured.

 

Rule one: assess your situation.

 

Rule two: escape.

 

And rule three: run like hell.

 

Of course with Jack, rule three usually was accompanied by nudity, but Rose doubted this situation would come to that. At least she sincerely hoped not.

 

Well, she wasn’t going to able to follow rules two and three until she followed rule one.

 

First things first. Her physical condition.

 

The good news was that the perichloridol Lisa had sprayed her with was wearing off. Her vision had cleared, the nausea had gone and the dizziness and the pounding in her head were going away. The bad news was both her wrists and ankles were sore and slightly swollen, but she believed neither her wrists nor her ankles were sprained, thank goodness. The skin on her face and wrists was raw where she had ripped off the heavy tape. She had a carpet burn on one arm, probably from the car boot, a bad scrape on her face from the cement, a sore spot, possibly a bruise, from where Lisa had slapped her, she was dirty, and her new jeans were torn.

 

Actually, all in all, not an unusual condition for a typical day in the life of a Torchwood employee.

 

Next, her location.

 

She was definitely in the cellar of some building but she had no idea where. There was a light switch on the wall near the door, but it didn’t work. That could mean she was in an abandoned building, or perhaps the owners had not paid the electric bill. Or maybe the bulb was just burned out. Rose pulled a chair against the wall, climbed up it, and looked out the window. There didn’t appear to be any lights on in any nearby buildings, either.

Wait a minute. Hadn’t Lisa Hallett mentioned a power outage? And unfortunately it was getting dark. She got down and sat on the chair.

 

Last, her weapons.

 

Actually, Jack would probably have done an assessment of the weapons first, followed by the location and then his physical condition, but he wasn’t here, so Rose did it in the order that meant the most to her.

 

So now her weapons. She had a knife that had been very helpful for cutting the tape that bound her, but was almost no good for attack or even self-defense. But it was something.

 

What else? What had he told her? Almost anything could be used as a weapon. But there was nothing here except a furnace, a table and two chairs, one of which she was sitting on.

 

Rose got up and looked at the chair. Putting the knife down on the floor, she picked up the chair and swung it around. A bit unwieldy. It was more likely Hallett would be able to grab it from her than it was that Rose could knock her out with it. So that was out. And of course so was the table.

 

Or was it?

 

Rose dragged the table over near the windows for a closer look. It was a metal table with a porcelain coating and chrome legs. She bent down and looked underneath it. The legs were screwed into the top rather than welded. She flipped the table over, picked her knife up off the floor, and began using it to unscrew one of the legs off.

 

After Rose had finished removing the legs from the table, having decided to remove them all if for no other reason than to have something to do to relieve the boredom, she shoved the table top and three of the legs of the table as far behind the furnace as she could, to make them less accessible, so they couldn’t be used against her. She saved one of the table legs out so she could use it as a club against anyone who came to get her.

 

Unfortunately, that was all she could do. Night had fallen and it had grown so dark in the cellar she could barely see. She sat on the floor in the corner of the room, behind the door, metal table leg in her hands, and waited.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Upon returning to the lab, Ianto immediately went to work on the computers and the Doctor had Pete help him disassemble equipment on the workbench.

 

“Now what exactly are we doing?” Pete asked, grabbing a screwdriver and picking up a voltmeter.

 

“The creature we are looking for is an energy creature,” the Doctor reminded him. “All life gives off a certain amount of energy, but the creature we are looking for gives it off at a much higher amount, and primarily at a very specific wavelength.”

 

“The blue color,” Pete said.

 

“Yes. Now what I am doing, and what you are helping me with, is taking this equipment and making into something that will detect that energy signature and wavelength.”

 

As Rose’s stepfather began to disassemble equipment, the Doctor sat down at the workbench, put on his glasses, and immediately surrounded himself with a half dozen other pieces, both of human and alien origin. Seeming at random, he picked up the motherboard from one and a coil of wire from another, examined them both, discarded the wire, picked up a different piece of wire, and then discarded both the motherboard and the wire. He then picked up a miniature microphone from a cannibalized mobile phone and peered at it through his glasses. Seemingly dissatisfied with it, he put it down and picked up the innards of the voltmeter Pete had dismantled. Pete watched in interest for a moment, and then returned to what he was doing.

 

A short while later, Ianto and Owen interrupted them.

 

“Doctor,” Ianto said, “I managed to find out something on your doctoral student, Sean Callahan. He was scheduled to return to Cambridge three months ago, but he never arrived. No one seems to know where he is. And no one has seen nor heard from Michael Fields since last week.

 

“And Owen and I have been comparing notes,” he continued. “I’ve been looking at receipts from Lisa’s petrol credit card. She usually fills her car up near her flat or near here, where she works, but there were a half dozen fill ups in the last few months at a petrol station near the Griffith Street substation. That’s far too far out of her way, and far too many times, for it to be coincidence.”

 

“And that’s the same area where the bulk of the first disappearances were,” Owen added. He pointed at a map on one of the computer screens on the wall. “Now there are a number of abandoned lots in that area where they could have set up their equipment, but in looking over the plans, the energy collectors could just as easily been placed on the flat roof of a building near there. I’ve searched the area using the satellite imagery from Torchwood’s mainframe; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything that looked like what you described to me. Sorry. It doesn’t seem to be much help…”

 

“Oh, no, that’s a tremendous help,” the Doctor corrected. Jumping up, he peered at the screen. Pete looked at the map over his shoulder. “Everything comes down to the same area, the power outages, the disappearances, Lisa’s petrol receipts…I believe you’ve just narrowed the search for Rose from the Greater London area to an area with a quarter mile radius with its center located at the substation.” He stared at the screen and muttered to himself. “No, not likely there, too busy there… Ha!”

 

“Pete, tell your teams to concentrate their search for Rose in this area.” He pointed to about a dozen blocks in the area Owen had indicated. “Especially between Griffith St. and the motorway.”

 

Pete already had his mobile out. “Already on it,” he said.

 

As Pete made arrangements on his mobile to have the Torchwood search teams search in the area the Doctor had indicated, Owen and Ianto returned to the computers to do more research and the Doctor returned to building his equipment. After Pete was finished, he returned to helping the Doctor. It was fascinating to him to see the Doctor work. He hadn’t done months of research and design, he hadn’t drawn up a plan, and yet he seemed to be able to design and build complex equipment, almost from scratch, from the cast-offs of others.

 

The Doctor, on the other hand, was just concentrating on working as fast as he could, and inwardly bemoaning the lack of a sonic screwdriver. At this point, he would have even taken the rubbish one he used to use in his third life, he thought. It certainly would have made building this new alien detector easier.

 

A short while later Jackie walked into the lab carrying a large bag from a local takeaway restaurant.  “Sandwiches,” she called.

 

“Oh, you are a life saver,” Owen told her. Neither he nor Ianto had eaten since Cardiff, and it had now been hours. Owen didn’t know about Ianto, but he was starving.

 

Jackie brought a turkey sandwich and a bottle of orange Vitex over to the workbench, placing them next to the Doctor. He shook his head, not bothering to look up from his work.

 

“C’mon, you need to eat,” she coaxed him, thinking she should have had Todd pick up some bananas in addition to the sandwiches. “When was the last time you ate?”

 

“The sooner I get this done, Jackie, the sooner we can solve this whole mess, and the sooner I can find Rose,” he told her, twisting two pieces of wire together and covering the exposed ends with a tiny plastic cap. “I can eat after we find her.”

 

 

 

Rose sat in the dark of the cellar, trying to stay awake. It was quiet, too quiet for a typical London neighborhood, even in the middle of the night. She hadn’t heard a single voice, a single car engine, a single dog bark. She hadn’t even heard Lisa or Sean in hours. It was possible she was no longer in London, she thought, but even then, there should be some sort of noise. Even the ever present hum of electrical equipment found in modern day buildings was gone due to the power outage. The silence was starting to make her ears ring in an effort to provide some sort of stimulus to the hearing centers of her brain.

 

She wondered just how long she had been down here. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the dark, and she found she could see fairly clearly. Of course it helped that there was a clear sky and the moon had risen. It was nearly full and the last time she had looked out the window Rose had noticed its reflected glow was casting shadows outside. The small windows near the ceiling of the cellar were actually providing a fair amount of light. She had long since replaced her tiny knife in her shoe and, once she could see well enough, had searched the cellar again, just in case she had missed something in her initial search. She hadn’t.

 

Although she was worried for herself, Rose knew she had been in more difficult situations before. She had been in more danger most of the time when she had been traveling with the Doctor.  Being surrounded by Daleks on the Crucible was certainly more dangerous. And of course every single trip she had taken to parallel worlds in search of the Doctor had been far more dangerous than the situation she was currently in. Just using the dimension cannon was more dangerous, and then when she arrived… Several times she had landed in active war zones, bombs exploding around her, and once she had found herself on an Earth parallel with a poisonously polluted atmosphere. Luckily, she had managed to get Mickey to shift her back before she had suffocated, shouting, “Shift back now!” with the last bit of air in her lungs. Mickey, hearing the note of desperation in her voice, shifted her back faster then than any time before or since. If one didn’t count the Crucible, that may have been the most danger she had been in since almost falling in the Void at Canary Wharf. In all the trips through parallel worlds she had taken, she had always told herself that if she could get through that, she could get through anything.

 

So Rose was actually more worried for her mum, dad, and the Doctor. Again she derided herself for following Lisa Hallett out of that meeting without telling anyone where she was going. Not that she had ever listened to the “don’t wander off” rule of the Doctor’s even when she was nineteen. And she certainly hadn’t taken it into consideration since she had become a Torchwood field agent. It was her job to wander off, so to speak.

 

But by following Dr. Hallett out of the meeting without telling anyone, she had no way of knowing whether or not they knew Lisa had been involved in her kidnapping.

 

And beyond that, Rose knew they’d be worried about her. Her mum in particular. Just thinking about her mum’s probable reaction made her roll her eyes. Despite Rose being an adult, her mum seemed to make it her mission in life to worry about her. Of course, sitting kidnapped in a cellar God knows where would seem to justify her mum’s concern. For that reason alone she needed to escape. She really didn’t think she could listen to another “I told you so” lecture.

 

And then there was the Doctor. She knew he would somehow think of a reason to blame himself, if not specifically for her kidnapping, then at least for not managing to keep her safe. She needed to get out of here for him as well. She didn’t want him blaming himself for her own stupidity at getting so easily kidnapped.

 

And what Lisa Hallett had said concerned her. What did she know about him? What did she think she knew? This was why she had been so concerned when Pete had had the Doctor examined at Torchwood. And she had thought she could trust Owen enough to erase the Doctor’s medical records in Cardiff. Obviously he hadn’t, because somehow Lisa had managed to see them and was trying to blackmail her over them. This was the exact type of situation she and the Doctor had been worried about. Or worse.

 

Thinking of the Doctor made her realize she missed him. To her surprise, when Lisa Hallett had mentioned the Doctor when she had been questioning her, Rose’s first thought was of _this_ Doctor. It hadn’t even occurred to her at the time to think of the Time Lord Doctor. And in realizing that, she had had another realization. She had spent almost seven years missing the Time Lord Doctor, so she was so used to the feeling she hadn’t noticed it at first, but she now found she missed _this_ Doctor. They had only been separated a matter of hours, and she really, really missed him. She missed his goofy smile, his silly teasing, the intense looks he sometimes gave her, and his unexpected jealous streak. She missed his openness toward her. She missed holding his hand. She missed being held by him. She missed his chocolate brown eyes and his blue suit and his really great hair and his sexy specs. She _missed_ him.

 

And if given another chance she was going to snog the hell outa him.

 

She blinked at the turn of her thoughts. Oh my God, had she truly fallen in love with him already? Is that what Lisa had been sensing back when she had been interrogating her? Rose had wondered about it in Cardiff, but she had been drunk and confused and hurt at the time. But she wasn’t drunk now. And now she wondered. Had she really fallen in love with him?

 

 

 

The Doctor impatiently paced back and forth.  His new alien detector was finished, and several Torchwood teams were already out checking for signs of Rose, Hallett’s car, or the energy collectors. Several other teams were in the process of preparing to leave.

 

“I want to go with them, Pete. I need to be out there searching as well.”

 

“Absolutely not,” Pete responded flatly. “Those teams are not only highly trained but are used to working together as a unit. Having you there with them is just going to throw them off. I can’t risk you getting in their way.”

 

Stopping and turning to face him, the Doctor glared at him angrily. “Do not get in _my_ way, Pete,” he said in a low voice. “Not on this. Not when Rose’s life may be at stake.”

 

Although he felt an instinctive wave of fear at the Doctor’s tone, Pete Tyler nevertheless stood his ground. “I can’t have you out there with those teams, Doctor. You’d be more of a hindrance than a help to them, and I won’t have it.”

 

“We’ll take him,” Owen said. He and Ianto had quietly crossed the room to stand beside the Doctor. “If he needs to be out there looking, then he should be out there looking. And I didn’t drive all the way from Cardiff to come here and sit on my arse. I came to look for Rose, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

 

Pete Tyler looked from one man to the next. The Doctor stood in front of him, hands plunged deep into his trouser pockets. Despite the casualness of his pose, his body radiated a coiled tension that threatened to break free at the slightest provocation. Owen and Ianto flanked him, each with his arms crossed across his chest. Pete saw in their expressions that each one of them was determined to defy him if necessary. He swore fluently under his breath.

 

“Fine, fine,” he said finally. “But I’m going with you.”

 

Within minutes, the four men were driving through the streets of the Griffin Street neighborhood, Owen behind the wheel of the big, black 4X4 he and Ianto had driven in from Cardiff. Although both Pete and Owen were from London, Owen had insisted on driving since he knew the neighborhood fairly well, having grown up in a similar neighborhood near there.

 

The Doctor sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle, making minute adjustments to his alien detector while Ianto Jones and Pete Tyler sat in the back seat, monitoring the high-tech equipment that had been built into the vehicle. They had satellite links and links to both government and Torchwood-exclusive databases as well as weapons that could be accessed if needed. Unfortunately, nothing they scanned even gave a blip on the radar. And as Rose wasn’t carrying anything that could be traced by satellite, they were limited as to how much help they could be unless they found her.

 

“What exactly is that thing supposed to do?” Owen asked the Doctor, with an offhand gesture to the box in the Doctor’s lap.

 

The Doctor quickly ran through his description of the aliens, his theory about Bradford’s energy collectors, the science behind his alien detector and his hopes that if they could somehow find Bradford’s equipment, Rose would be nearby.

 

“Sounds like kind of a long shot,” Owen replied. “But I’ve been on worse wild goose chases.”

 

For hours they drove slowly through the area, up and down deserted streets and alleys, the Doctor scanning the area for the aliens with his detector. But there was no sign of the aliens, Rose, Lisa, her car, or Bradford’s energy collectors.

 

“Are you sure that thing’s working?” Ianto asked from the back seat.

 

The Doctor sighed loudly in frustration. “It’s working, alright. I’m picking up signals. But not the right signals. I’m getting AM radio from Thailand. The wavelength adjustment is off, and so is the range,” he said. He pulled some tools from his pocket and tried to make adjustments to the alien detector in the dark. Finally he groaned, exasperated. “The way it is now, I practically would have to be on top of it to get any kind of reading at all.”

 

At that, Owen immediately turned the SUV around, doing a U-turn in the middle of the deserted street. He headed back for the motorway.

 

“Wait, what are you doing?” the Doctor demanded, a touch of desperation in his voice. “We need to keep looking.”

 

“Doctor, we’ve been out here for hours and we are no closer to finding her than we were when we left,” Owen told him. “I’m heading back for Torchwood. I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely knackered and so are the two of them.” He gestured to the back seat where Ianto and Pete sat. “Now we’re going back. And while I close my eyes for a bit, you can make some adjustments to your machine there. We can come back out in a few hours.”

 

The Doctor didn’t like it, but even he could see that Owen was exhausted. And although he hated to admit it, he wasn’t making any progress on trying to adjust the range on his alien detector in the dark of the car. Bowing to the inevitable, he nodded his assent, but not without an angry glare at the other man.

 

As soon as they returned to the Torchwood compound, he returned to the lab and immediately went back to work on it, increasing its sensitivity so that it would be able to pick up a signal a quarter of a mile away.

 

The Doctor was anxious to get back out there and look again, but it would have been near impossible to do it alone. Someone needed to drive while he operated the alien detector. And the truth was, there really wasn’t much he could do to find her beyond what the Torchwood teams were already doing. But if she hadn’t been found by daybreak, he vowed he was going to go back out there and check every inch of London if he had to, with or without the others.

 

It was past 3 o’clock in the morning. The Doctor, having removed his suit jacket and thrown it on a nearby chair, had resumed pacing back and forth across the length of the lab. Assuming Rose had been kidnapped within five minutes of them noticing she was gone, she now had been missing almost ten hours. While the Doctor had had projects to work on, he had been able to ignore his fear for Rose’s safety, but now that the projects were mostly complete, his previous waves of fear and panic had returned and threatened to overtake him.

 

After visiting the lab for a moment, Pete had left to join Jackie in taking a nap in his office. Pete had urged him to get some sleep as well, but he had told him he’d sleep after Rose had been found. He had also made the point, not particularly relevant given his current biology, that he had probably already slept more in the past week than he had during his entire ninth incarnation. But the truth was he couldn’t sleep. Not while she was still out there somewhere. His mind and his heart wouldn’t let him.

 

His own sleeplessness aside, Ianto and Owen had been exhausted and Pete had offered to put them up in the mansion or a local hotel. When they had pulled into the Torchwood compound, he thought he had heard Pete suggesting setting up some cots somewhere for them to sleep, but he hadn’t paid much attention, only belatedly noticing they had not followed him to the lab.

 

He stopped pacing for a moment, his anxiety turning to frustration and fury. _What can I do, what can I do_ , he thought, yanking on his hair. He began to stalk about the room again, rage building, looking for something to throw. Spying a discarded electrical component, he picked it up and weighed it in his hand for a moment. Suddenly, angrily, he flung it against the wall, narrowly missing one of the computers hanging there, and then turned and swept a pile of other useless pieces onto the floor where they made a loud crash when they landed. Breathing heavily, he realized his emotions were threatening to overtake him and he knew that that could be dangerous for anyone and anything in his way. He hadn’t been called the Oncoming Storm for nothing.

 

But then the words of his other self came back to haunt him.

 

Too dangerous. 

 

_You remember what we were like after the Time War. The mood swings, the anger, the depression._

Was it possible that his other self was right?

 

No. He refused to accept it. He wouldn’t allow himself to be controlled by his emotions. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took slow, deep breaths, forcing his feelings down and almost, but not quite, burying them.

 

Instead, he told himself, he needed to focus on something else. He glanced quickly around the lab for something, anything.

 

And spotted the bulletin board of Rose’s photos.

 

Crossing over to it, the Doctor picked it up and stared at it again. Every single picture told him a story, not just of what had happened the day the picture had been taken, but how extraordinary Rose was. Rose had used these photos to remind herself why she was fighting so hard to get back to him. And despite all odds, despite a human doing what a Time Lord hadn’t been able to do, despite the utter impossibility of her crossing the void and finding him again, she had done it.

 

And he could use these same pictures to remind himself not to give in to despair.

 

The Doctor sank down on a stool next to the workbench and took one of the photos off the bulletin board. It was one of the oldest, and was of his ninth incarnation sprawled in an armchair in Jackie’s living room, a copy of Great Expectations in his lap. There was writing on the back of the photo. He flipped it over and smiled when he read it. Rose had written in a messy scrawl, _Proof that the Doctor actually sleeps!_

 

He knew exactly when it had been taken, although he hadn’t been aware of it at the time. It was shortly after Jack had joined them, and Jack and Rose had begun betting each other over all sorts of things, often having to do with him. They assumed he didn’t know about the bets, but neither of them were particularly subtle and he had always known what they were on about. That particular bet, if he recalled correctly, was for five quid if they caught him asleep, ten if someone got actual evidence of him sleeping. The Doctor remembered overhearing Jack at one point offer Rose fifty if she could manage to have him fall asleep with her, preferably in bed, double if Jack could get a picture of it, but to his relief at the time, Rose wouldn’t take Jack up on that one.

 

After weeks of them sneaking around, and weeks of forcing himself to stay awake, he finally had had enough and decided to fix the bet in Rose’s favor. On a trip to visit Jackie, he had decided to pretend to nap after reading in her living room. But the joke was on him. He actually had fallen asleep, and the proof was in his hands. He wondered absently if Rose had ever managed to collect her ten quid.

 

The next photo he looked at was the one taken in Cardiff. Roald Dahl Plass and the Millennium Centre were part of the Mermaid Quay shopping district and the area was popular with residents and tourists alike. The photo was a typical tourist shot of the People Like Us statue at Mermaid Quay, with the waterfront in the background. Jack, Rose and he were standing next to the statues, Rose between Jack and him with her arms looped through theirs. The picture was taken shortly before they had all gone to the café to get something to eat. Jack and Rose were grinning, Rose from ear to ear, and he himself had an expression of what had passed for mild amusement on his face during that incarnation. He remembered Rose had asked Mickey to meet them in Cardiff on that trip, with the excuse that she needed her passport, while he was recharging the TARDIS on the Rift. She had wanted a photo of them all together, but the last thing he had wanted then was to have to be in a photo with “Ricky the Idiot.” She must have sensed it, because Rose had finally convinced Mickey to take the picture, telling him that he was the only one she trusted with her phone. At the time, his ninth self took the fact that Mickey believed her as proof that he truly was an idiot.

 

Setting that picture down with the others, he picked up the photo from Woman Wept. He remembered that day so clearly. It was shortly after they had met Jack during the Blitz. He had actually been aiming for someplace warm. Rose had requested a beach, and Jack had wanted nightlife, and somehow they had ended up at Woman Wept at midnight. Well, it was a beach, and it was night. Not wanting to admit his navigational skills occasionally left a lot to be desired, he had told them he meant to take them to that frozen world.

 

Jack had taken one step out of the TARDIS and went immediately back inside, complaining loudly of the cold, but Rose had been delighted, had seen it as an adventure. She bundled up, dressing in warm, winter clothing provided by the TARDIS wardrobe, and had pulled him out for a long walk on the frozen beach. Evidently she had left her mobile in the TARDIS, because Jack had managed to find it and take a moonlit picture of them as they had returned from their walk.

 

Looking at the two of them walking on the beach, so, so long ago, he was struck, and not for the first time, by how much time he had wasted while they were traveling together. He had been so worried about getting too close, so worried about how he would feel after eventually losing her as he had lost everyone else. And of course, in the end, he had lost her at Canary Wharf. And it hadn’t mattered one bit that he had tried to keep his distance from her. He still felt he had had his hearts ripped out when she was gone.

 

But now being with her again, being part human with a limited lifespan, and especially having her missing, he felt the urgency of wasted time. If he got her back… no, _when_ he got her back, he wasn’t wasting any more time. Somehow, he had to _make_ her understand who he was. And how much he cared for her.

 


	29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rose awoke with a start. She hadn’t intended to doze off, but she had been so exhausted for so long it had been hard to stay awake. Shortly before her nap, she had thought she had seen the reflection of headlights and heard a car engine, but when she had gone to look, she hadn’t seen anything. Disappointed, she had returned to her vigil and had evidently dropped off.

A dim light was currently coming in from the cellar windows, and it wasn’t light from the moon. It must be dawn, she thought. Her heart began to pound when she heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs outside the cellar door. 

Probably Sean, she thought. Too bad it wasn’t Lisa. Sean was taller, stronger, and had a much longer reach than she had. It would be a lot harder to overpower him.

But not impossible.

Despite her years as a Torchwood agent, despite a year of jumping from parallel dimension to parallel dimension in search of the Doctor, despite countless hours in the gym, she truly didn’t have very much experience with hand to hand combat. And most of the training she had had hadn’t come from Torchwood, but from the Doctor and Jack while traveling in the TARDIS. And it had been Jack who had initially taught her about fighting a bigger opponent. 

_“Now remember, Rosie,” Jack had said to her. “If you are fighting an opponent who is bigger and stronger than you are, you’d better hope to God you’re better than he is or he’s gonna win. And when I say better, I mean a lot better. Cos if you’re not, that’s it. It’s all over. If he’s at the same skill level as you are, or God forbid, if he’s better than you are, forget it. It’s all over. Your only shot at winning is the element of surprise. You hit first, and you hit hard, and then you get the hell out of there. Understand?”_

Jack had then taught her a couple of moves, moves he said to use only as a last resort, because the object wasn’t to fight, it was to get away.

Rose silently moved one of the chairs to a place behind the door and climbed on top of it, holding the metal table leg she had removed from the table earlier. She wasn’t directly behind the door, though, because if Sean opened it too quickly she could get hit by it, or it would end up swinging between her and her target. Instead, she put herself about eight inches out from where the edge of the door would be when it swung fully open. 

She heard a key fumble in the lock, and then the creak of a rusty hinge as the door slowly swung open. She saw a tall shape enter the room and swung her table leg as hard as she could.

With a jolt, Rose felt the table leg connect with her target, and the person she had hit slumped to the floor, unconscious. She jumped off the chair and checked to see who it was. Thankfully it was Sean and not some Torchwood agent come to rescue her. She quickly searched his pockets and found a wallet, some change, and a set of keys. She pocketed everything and left the room, locking one of her kidnappers in the cellar.

 

As the Doctor picked up the last of the photos and put them back on Rose’s bulletin board, he noticed the smart board Pete had had brought into the lab. The Doctor had intended on looking at current star charts on it, but with everything going on, he still hadn’t spent any time actually working on that project.

Putting Rose’s bulletin board back against the wall, he crossed over to it. But when he looked at it, all he saw was Rose. Rose tied up somewhere. Rose hurt. Rose lying in a ditch somewhere, dead… No, he couldn’t allow himself to think that way. She is going to be okay, he told himself firmly. They were going to find her. And the sooner he solved all of this, the stars disappearing, the aliens, the business about Richard Bradford’s research, the sooner they would get her back.

The Doctor took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. He had to focus. He had to concentrate. 

He bent down to press a button, and, with a hum, the screen began to glow. He pulled up the star charts on the smart board, first highlighting the stars that were missing, and then deleting all those that were not missing. He had them displayed from various angles, as viewed from Earth, as viewed from the Galactic Center, as viewed from outside the galaxy entirely. 

Pulling his glasses out of his pocket, the Doctor put them on, this time not to see nearly as much as just to help him concentrate. Something was nagging at him. These stars were familiar. Very familiar. Like he should know this exact list for some reason. But the list was wrong somehow. Probably because it was in this universe rather than his own, he told himself. If only he had the TARDIS, he thought in frustration. If he had the TARDIS, he could just go to the area and look to see what had caused it. That’s what he would have done before. _Maybe someday_ , he told himself, thinking about the small branch of coral in the cellar of the Tyler mansion. Sighing loudly and sitting back at the workbench, he ran his hands through his hair again and stared at the screen again.

 

There was a door at the top of the stairs. Carefully Rose opened it, and, thankfully, it didn’t squeak. She found herself in the hallway of what appeared to be an abandoned home. There were several doors in front of her, as well as another flight of stairs leading upward. The door to the outside was right in front of her, only ten feet away. She could sneak out and be gone before anyone knew she was missing and she could send a Torchwood team back to capture Lisa and Sean.

But she didn’t have her mobile. She couldn’t call for a team. And by the time she found a phone Lisa and Sean could escape.

She turned away from the front door and opened another. An empty kitchen. She realized she was starving. The last time she had eaten was lunch with the Doctor on the way back from Cardiff, and who knows how long ago that had been. Stomach growling in protest, she left the kitchen and went to the next door. The loo. Okay, now she really knew where she was headed immediately after sorting Lisa. One more door led to what looked like a living room of sorts, completely empty, with newspapers taped over the front window. Definitely a vacant house, and probably not on any current listing. She couldn’t imagine an estate agent showing this place with newspapers taped to the window.

That left the stairs. Damn. If things went pear-shaped, she might end up stuck somewhere above ground floor, and she really wasn’t looking forward to jumping out any windows. There was still always the option of sneaking outside and calling for back up. 

A noise from above made her look at the ceiling. Really, given who she was, there really wasn’t a choice. Cautiously, quietly, she started to tiptoe up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, again there were several doors. The door to the upstairs bathroom stood open, tempting her beyond belief, but at least she knew where Lisa wasn’t. That left two doors remaining.

Rose peeked into the one closest to her. It appeared to be the room she had been in before. There wasn’t much furniture, just a couple of chairs, and…

Against the far wall, tied up and unconscious, was someone who looked a great deal like Michael Fields. Well, until she knew where Lisa was, she couldn’t do anything for him. Vowing to come back for him, she turned to the next door.

The door farthest from the stairs was slightly open, and Rose could here a crackling sound, the same sound she had heard at the substation. Curious, Rose snuck up to the door and peered through the crack. What she saw made her freeze in shock. Lisa Hallett was standing in front of her computer, her outstretched hand touching the monitor, eyes closed. A blue light emanated from the monitor and surrounded her, not consuming her and not forcing her away. What’s more, she seemed to be talking to it.

“No, it’s all under control,” Lisa said in a low voice. “Just give me more time. I can handle this.”

“Help! Open up!” The voice of a man yelling came up from the cellar.

Rose swore under her breath. Sean had come to.

Through the crack between the door and the frame, Rose saw Lisa break away from the computer and rush toward the door. Rose turned to flee down the stairs, but she wasn’t quick enough. Coming through the door, Lisa spotted her. She flung herself at Rose, knocking her to the floor.

“Oh, you’ve been a naughty, naughty girl,” Lisa gasped. She pulled what looked to Rose like a small sonic blaster out of her pocket. _Someone must have been scavenging from Torchwood_ , Rose thought. 

Holding the blaster steady on Rose, Lisa forced her to her feet.

“In there,” she said, gesturing with her head. Without taking her eyes from the weapon, Rose backed her way through the open door and into the room where she had seen Lisa with the computer.

“I must say I’m impressed. You managed to get yourself freed and overpower Sean. I really didn’t think you’d be able to get past Sean,” Lisa said. They could both still hear him yelling from below. She rolled her eyes at the sound. “The idiot.”

“Now what do I do with you?” Lisa asked her, clearly annoyed by the turn of events. “Do you have any suggestions? I could kill you, but as you are Pete Tyler’s daughter that might make certain people take notice of this situation and I really don’t want that to happen.”

“Whatever you do, they’re gonna catch you,” Rose told her. “They’re gonna figure out it was you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lisa replied calmly. “Even if they know it was me, there isn’t any proof. At this point, the most they could possibly have on me is my ID. Hardly evidence of anything, really. And if you’re gone, there’ll be no one to testify against me. On the other hand, a strong dose of Ret-Con might be just the ticket. I don’t have to kill you, and I don’t have to worry about what you’d say about me. I wouldn’t have to erase your memories far, just far enough back that you’ll not only forget this little incident, but also anything you’ve learned about my little project. I’d say a week or so ought to do it.”

Somehow, that scared Rose more than the prospect of being killed. Not that possibly being killed didn’t scare her. Of course it did. And given the weapon in her hand, Rose knew Lisa had the power to do it. Thankfully Lisa didn’t seem to want to kill her, just make her forget. But if Lisa erased her memories, all her memories, of the past week she would forget the Doctor. _This_ Doctor. Her first glimpse of him as he rushed out of the TARDIS on the Crucible. The first time she had actually spoken to him on the TARDIS. Hearing him whisper in her ear the words she had longed to hear for so long. The kiss on the beach, which she suddenly knew she didn’t regret anymore. And so many more memories that had been packed into only a matter of days. Hours, really. And she didn’t want to do that. She couldn’t do that.

No, she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t let Lisa make her forget him. And she would get back to him. Now.

Lisa was holding the blaster in her right hand. In her mind, Rose quickly ran through the moves she’d have to make to disarm her. Less than a second later, she almost imperceptibly widened her stance and slightly bent her knees, lowering her center of gravity and giving her more stability on her feet. She waited for an opening. And it came, almost immediately, in the form of another yell from the cellar.

Lisa turned her head slightly at the sound of Sean’s swearing, but that was all Rose needed. Due to the rubber of the sole of her shoe, it wasn’t as smooth a move as she would have liked, but it still was effective. She spun on the ball of her right foot, swinging her left foot around and knocking the weapon out of the other woman’s hand. It flew across the room and, thankfully, did not go off when it landed. Taking advantage of the momentum of her spin, Rose followed through with a right cross to Lisa’s jaw. 

Things got messy after that.

Lisa Hallett was a better fighter than Rose expected. Being taller than Rose and having a longer reach, Lisa also had a bit of an advantage. She flung herself at Rose, knocking her to the ground and kicking her in her side. Rose rolled out of the way and jumped back to her feet, but not before a couple of Lisa’s kicks connected. Wincing, Rose punched her again. The force of the blow made Lisa’s head fly backwards, but the blow had landed badly and Rose felt a shooting pain go through her wrist.

At the same moment, they seemed to see the same thing. The small spray vial of perichloridol sitting on the table next to Lisa’s computer.

They both lunged for it. Rose reached it first, landing badly on her ankle at the same time. She grabbed it and sprayed Lisa, who fell like a rock to the floor.

Heart racing, Rose tried to catch her breath. In the distance, she could still hear Sean swearing loudly. She had to deal with that. And tie Lisa up. And call Torchwood.

But first a trip to the loo.

A few minutes later, while trying to ignore Sean yelling and cursing in the basement, Rose managed to find the heavy duty tape that she had been bound with. Despite the shooting pain in her wrist, or perhaps because of it, she took a perverse pleasure in binding Lisa up the same way. 

She checked on Michael Fields. She untied him, checking on his vital signs. They were okay, but he was still unconscious. Well, Torchwood’s medics would be able to take care of him if she could just call them and tell them where she was. If she knew where she was. And if she could find a phone.

She searched the whole house with the exception of the cellar, where Sean was still locked up. Thank God he had finally stopped yelling. He had really been starting to get on her nerves. For some reason she wasn’t able to find Lisa’s mobile, so she then headed out of the house in an effort to find a phone.

And stopped in amazement, shaking her head. There, parked next to the kerb, practically in front of the house she had just exited, was a Torchwood van. She knew that somehow, in some way, the Doctor was responsible for it being there.

“How on Earth did he manage that?” she said to herself.

She glanced down the street and saw two of her colleagues, checking door to door for her no doubt. Two more were the other direction, on the far side of the deserted street. That left at least one or two people still in the van. Limping up to it, she knocked on the front passenger side window. She grinned at them when the window was lowered.

“Hi, guys,” she said. “Looking for me?”

 

Todd Richards knocked on the door to his boss’s office before he stuck his head in the doorway.

“Director, Rose has just phoned in,” he said. 

Pete Tyler sat up abruptly in his desk chair where he had been dozing. Jackie, who had been in a light sleep, woke up and almost fell off the sofa. 

“Where is she?” Jackie demanded.

“What did she say?” Pete asked at the same time.

“She said she has Lisa Hallett in custody, along with Sean Callahan,” he told them. “She also found Michael Fields tied up and unconscious. We had a van in the area and it has already picked them up. They should be pulling into the main garage any minute.”

Pete started out of the room, followed closely by Jackie.

“Jacks, you need to stay here,” he said. “You’ll be in the way down there.”

“Peter Alan Tyler, if you think I am staying up here, you have another thing coming,” she informed him. “You’ll have to tie me up to keep me from coming with you.”

Pete narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, shaking his finger at her, but he let her come with.

Torchwood had several garages. The one located in the main building was located near the prisoner lockup and had the ability to be locked down during prisoner transportation. When Pete and Jackie arrived, it was already filled with armed security personnel, and Torchwood’s version of A&E paramedics stood in a corner with a stretcher for Michael Fields. Pete turned to his wife.

“Now if you’re going to be here, Jacks, you need to stay out of the way,” he told her. She nodded.

“Shouldn’t we get himself?” Jackie asked, jerking her head toward the lift that had brought them to the garage. 

Pete shook his head. “There’s no time to get the Doctor. They’re already here.”

Jackie moved to the far wall as the large garage door opened. A plain white van pulled into the building and the door immediately closed behind it. The van was immediately surrounded by security guards, weapons trained on the rear door of the vehicle. Pete Tyler watched from behind them. At his signal, one guard reached forward and opened the door with one hand, his other hand with the weapon still trained on the van. 

The door swung outward, and Torchwood agents exited the van first with Sean Callahan, then with Lisa Hallett. Both were handcuffed and shackled, and Lisa had some sort of heavy duty tape around her wrists as well. Her hair was a mess and a large bruise was forming on her jaw. As the guards led her past Pete, Lisa glared at him with contempt.

“Get her out of here,” Director Tyler said with barely controlled fury. “Put her in lockup.”

As she and Sean were led away, Rose slowly got out of the van and limped toward her parents. While Pete and Jackie rushed to hug her, Torchwood’s medical personnel entered the van to take care of Michael Fields. Jackie fussed over Rose’s injuries and complained loudly about Rose needing to be more careful. 

Rose ignored the lecture and looked around.

“Where’s the Doctor?” she asked.

“In Bradford’s lab. He doesn’t know you’re here,” Pete answered.

“And sweetheart, he has just been beside himself with worry,” her mother told her. “He cares about you so much.”

Rose found herself grinning. “I’m gonna go and find him, okay?”

“Need some help?” Pete asked. “You’re limping pretty badly.”

“Nah, I’ll just take it slow. The lab’s not that far from here.”

Pete watched as Rose walked toward the lift that led to the rest of the building. His assistant, Todd, was standing next to the lift waiting for him. Pete motioned him over.

“Is Frank Collins in yet?” he asked, thinking about Rose’s condition.

“No, sir,” the young man answered.

“Then go get Owen Harper and have him check out Rose. She’s headed to Bradford’s lab. As long as Harper’s still here, he can make himself useful. And I want to see him in my office, alone, before he returns to Cardiff.”

“Anything else?” Pete’s assistant asked.

“Yeah,” Jackie interjected. “We’re all gonna need some breakfast.”


	30. Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rose entered the lab to what looked like had been an explosion. Computer monitors covered the walls, and a smart board had been rolled in as well. On every horizontal surface, dozens of pieces of equipment seemed to have been dismantled and strewn around haphazardly. More pieces lay scattered all over the floor. The Doctor’s blue suit jacket appeared to have been tossed to one side. And, most surprising of all, propped against one wall, obviously taken from her office, was the bulletin board with her photos.

The Doctor was sitting on a tall stool at the workbench, back to the door, head in his hands. Her heart raced when she saw him, and in that instant she realized the truth of what she had suspected for days. He might be the other Doctor’s duplicate, a part human clone of the Time Lord in the other universe, but she had fallen in love with this man. She _loved_ him.

“Doctor,” she called softly.

The Doctor whirled around on his stool. Rose was standing in the doorway, her face breaking into a wide grin. To his eyes, she had never looked so wonderful.

“Rose,” he said in relief. He rushed to her and caught her up in a huge, tight hug, lifting her feet off the floor. For a minute he just stood there, crushing her to himself as if she would disappear if he let go.

Rose felt an edge of desperation in the way he was holding her, his arms shaking slightly, his face buried in her hair, his fingers so tightly coiled into her that they almost cut into her skin. All of a sudden it occurred to her just how worried he must have been while she had been missing. As she tightened her grip on him and whispered that she was alright, she felt the tension release from him in waves. 

Slowly, the Doctor relaxed his grip on her. He set her back down on the floor but he didn’t release her. He was so relieved that she was alright and it felt so good, so right, to have her in his arms again. Part of him, and not a small part either, didn’t ever want to let go of her. Impulsively, he bent his head to hers and brushed her lips with his. 

It was only intended to be a quick thank-goodness-you’re-okay kiss, but then Rose reached up behind his neck with her left hand, pulled his head back down to hers and kissed him back. The Doctor froze for a moment, eyes wide with surprise. Rose was kissing him. Really kissing him. He was torn between wanting to ask what had changed and an almost overwhelming desire to kiss her back so hard that she forgot her own name. He immediately told his brain to shut up and kiss her back, but he let Rose to take the lead. He really didn’t want her to change her mind and decide again that kissing him was a mistake. 

Moving one hand to thread his fingers through her hair, he moved the other to the small of her back to hold her firmly against himself. She opened her mouth slightly, deepening the kiss. He felt her teeth teasingly brush his lower lip and then her tongue gently touch his. A powerful wave of desire shot through him and he heard someone moan. Suddenly, somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized to his surprise it was him. 

Pulling away from her, he gazed into her eyes questioningly, looking for hesitation or uncertainty there. To his relief, there was none. He lowered his head back to hers, intending to kiss her slowly, tenderly. But he had wanted this for far, far too long, through regenerations, and parallel universes, and years of separation, and at the feel of her lips on his he decided that for once his good intentions could just sod off. Pulling her closer, he moved one hand to cup her face and kissed her, hard. As he deliberately deepened the kiss, she responded by softly moaning into his mouth. In that moment his entire awareness, his whole universe, narrowed to Rose: the silkiness of her hair, the softness of her lips and the caress of her tongue, the scent of her shampoo mixed with what was just undeniably Rose. As he felt her grip tighten and her other arm wrap around him, he felt his heart begin to pound wildly out of control. Without consciously realizing he was doing it, he backed her against the door frame, his lips never leaving hers. 

As they kissed, Rose was astonished by the intensity of it. His kiss, at first gentle, quickly became almost savage, revealing a hunger Rose hadn’t realized he felt. Her senses reeled as he tilted her head back and explored her mouth with his tongue. Almost overwhelmed, she felt her knees weaken and was grateful for the door frame holding her up. Responding with a hunger of her own, she tightly wrapped her arms around him, trying to pull him closer still.

Eventually the need for air forced them apart. The Doctor, wide-eyed, staggered backward to lean against the opposite door frame, not certain he could stand otherwise. Panting, they each stared at the other in shock. He wondered if the surprise he felt registered in his face as much as Rose’s did in hers. He took a deep breath and tried to slow his racing heart.

“Blimey,” he whispered, rubbing the back of his neck. He was still more than a little breathless and was really regretting the loss of his respiratory bypass. “That was…” He realized his voice was at least an octave too high. He cleared his throat. “Unexpected,” he finished. He blinked and exhaled forcefully, still very surprised by the turn of events. 

“Hello,” he said, smiling at her slightly self-consciously.

“Hello.” She was still leaning against the door frame, not particularly trusting her legs to hold her up. Biting her lower lip, she smiled shyly and giggled. 

“Rose,” he said, heart still racing, “are you alright?”

Rose wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah,” she nodded, still a bit out of breath. “I am now.” 

He grinned happily, delighted at her response, but then his smile faded as her condition finally registered in his brain. In an instant, he took in the cuts, the scrapes, and the bruises, the dirt and the torn clothes. 

“No, you’re not. Oh my god, Rose, you’re hurt.” He closed the distance between them, first gently cupping her chin and examining the scrapes and bruises on her face, then lifting her hands to examine the damage to her wrists. Rage welled up within him.

“What did that… _person_ … do to you?” he demanded.

“Not nearly as much as I did to her.” She smiled wryly. 

“Good,” he said, both savagely and uncharacteristically, and he pulled her into a gentler hug. After a moment, he pulled away from her just enough to look her in the face. He gently caressed her cheek with the back of one finger. “But you need to tell me what she did to you.”

“I will,” she promised, hugging him back. She rested her head on his chest. It felt so good to be in his arms, she thought to herself. “Just give me a mo.”

After a moment of just holding her, he swept her off her feet and carried her to a nearby chair.

“I can walk, you know,” she said in amusement.

“Let me be the judge of that,” he responded, setting her down. He carefully examined each of her injuries in turn, to make sure for himself that none were serious. Her face was bruised and scraped, and she seemed to have a rash from an adhesive that had been covering her mouth. There was more of the adhesive on her wrists. She had obviously been bound with some sort of heavy duty tape, he realized, and he felt another flash of rage. Tamping it down for the moment, he went on to examine her other injuries. Both her wrists and ankles were swollen. He was particularly concerned about her right wrist and ankle, but without a sonic screwdriver or other medical equipment he wouldn’t be able to determine the extent of her injuries. Never had he felt the lack of a sonic more keenly.

While he was still examining her, Rose heard the door to the lab open. Turning her head to the sound, she was astonished to see Ianto and Owen. The Doctor smiled when he saw her reaction.

“They came to help find you,” he told her. “Rose is hurt,” he explained to the others as they entered the lab. 

Picking his way through equipment scattered all over the floor, Owen crossed over to Rose and immediately began to examine her injuries. Ianto followed, carefully sidestepping things. He had a curious expression on his face as he looked at the mess on the floor. The Doctor moved out of Owen’s way as he had already finished his own cursory examination. Instead, he knelt next to her, resting a hand on her arm. 

Rose looked in gratitude at the three men next to her. Owen knelt in front of her, first examining the scratches and bruises on her face before turning to her wrists. After patting her arm awkwardly, Ianto stood nearby, trying to stay out of Owen’s way. In the meantime, the Doctor had one hand resting on her arm while his other arm was wrapped around her shoulders.

“Thank you both for coming out here to help,” she said sincerely.

“No problem, Tyler,” Owen answered for all of them without looking up. He had her right foot in his hands and was carefully examining her ankle. “You’d do the same for me.”

“For all of us,” Ianto added quietly.

The Doctor just squeezed her shoulders, smiling at her when she turned to face him.

“Most of these injuries are not too bad,” Owen said after a moment, confirming the Doctor’s own diagnosis, “but I’m a little concerned about the right ankle and wrist. They could be fractured or sprained. If they’re bad enough, she could need surgery.”

“Is there any way you can check here, so you don’t have to take me down to A&E?” Rose asked.

“Probably,” Owen responded. “Just point me in the direction of the infirmary. If they have anything like what we’ve got in Cardiff, I can bring it up here and get you checked out without having to move you.”

As soon as Owen had left, Ianto turned to her. “Rose, I wanted to talk to you privately for a minute,” he said. The Doctor started to get up to leave, but Rose grabbed his hand and pulled, forcing him to stay put. At the same time, Ianto shook his head. “No, sir, you can stay.”

“Rose,” he began again, “I just wanted to apologize for everything that Lisa put you through. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She wasn’t always like this.”

“Thank you, Ianto,” Rose said. Ianto bent over to hug her awkwardly, surprising her, and then immediately backed away again.

Owen returned almost immediately with an emergency medical kit as well as a device very similar to the one he had used to examine the Doctor and Rose in Cardiff. 

“Well, the good news is,” Owen announced after scanning her, “nothing appears broken. And I don’t think your ankle is actually sprained.”

“The bad news?” the Doctor asked.

“Her wrist is. Not badly, not enough to need surgery, but you have a partial tear to one of your ligaments,” Owen answered, speaking to both of them. “Tears can be a real bitch to heal. Worse than broken bones sometimes. I’d have you ice it, but it looks like it’s been swollen long enough that the ice wouldn’t do any good. Is it bothering you?” 

Rose shook her head. “It hurt pretty bad when I did it, but not so much anymore.”

“Well, that’s good, at least,” Owen said. He turned and pulled a wrist brace out of his medical kit. He put it on her, pulling the Velcro straps snugly. “This should keep your wrist stable enough. And even though your ankle isn’t sprained, you really shouldn’t be walking around. You should stay off it as much as possible for a few days.” At the expression on her face, Owen continued. “Yeah, I know. You staying off your feet is about as unlikely as Tosh suddenly developing a social life, but you should try anyway.” 

As he spoke, suddenly Rose remembered Lisa Hallett’s blackmail attempt and threats against the Doctor, and she felt a surge of anger toward Torchwood’s doctor.

“Owen, I really can’t believe you. I trusted you,” she said. She glanced at the Doctor. “We both trusted you.”

The Doctor, Owen and Ianto all looked at her in surprise.

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Owen asked.

“When we were in Cardiff,” she answered. “After you examined the Doctor. You said you’d delete his files.”

“I did,” he protested.

“Then how did Lisa Hallett know about him?” she demanded. “She saw the file from Cardiff. She as much as admitted it.”

“Rose, what happened? What did she say to you?” the Doctor asked. An edge of anger crept into his voice over what he could only guess she had gone through.

Rose started to answer him, and then shook her head, deciding to start at the beginning. “Lisa was acting a little suspiciously in the staff meeting, so I followed her out. We talked and I must have said something that made her suspicious of me, because she sprayed me with some knockout drug Torchwood developed.”

“She drugged you?” the Doctor asked, outraged.

“Do you know which one she used?” Owen asked.

“What did she call it? Peri-, peri-…” Rose stumbled over the name. She shook her head. “It’s one we didn’t use in Cardiff.”

“Perichloridol,” Owen supplied. “It’s similar to chloroform, but it works faster and lasts longer. There are other things she could have used that would have been worse. How did she administer it?”

“She had some sort of a tiny spray canister.”

Owen nodded. “How many doses do you remember her giving you?”

“Dunno,” Rose answered. “Let me think… Three. No, four. Four, I think.”

“How bad is that?” the Doctor asked, not being familiar with perichloridol.

“Well, it could have been worse,” Harper responded. “Did she give you anything else?”

“No,” Rose said. “She wanted to give me Vera-, Veratised, but they didn’t have any. They were talking about coming back here to get some.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” the Doctor asked. “And what’s Veratised?”

“‘They’ are Lisa Hallett and Sean Callahan,” Rose answered. “Evidently he was working with her.”

“And Veratised is a type of truth serum,” Owen told him, and made a face. “Not nice stuff. Horrible side effects. It’s a good thing she didn’t give it to you,” he told Rose. “Interacts with perichloridol in some really nasty ways.”

“But what did she want?” the Doctor asked.

“That’s the funny thing,” Rose said. “All she asked me was what we knew about her project. When I didn’t tell her what she wanted to know, partially cos I didn’t know what she wanted to know, she started to threaten to drug me. And she… she tried to blackmail me.”

Rose looked at the Doctor. “She knew stuff about you. She knew about our trip to Cardiff. She knew you were an alien.”

And then she turned to Owen. “And how would she have known all that if she hadn’t seen the file from Cardiff?” she demanded accusingly.

“It’s not his fault,” Ianto interjected, surprising himself by defending Owen. Again. “Lisa wrote much of the code for Torchwood’s computer system. Owen erasing the file wouldn’t have stopped her.” 

Rose’s anger abruptly faded. “Sorry, Owen,” she said. “I shouldn’t have accused you.”

“It’s alright, Tyler,” Owen responded. “I would have believed the same thing given the circumstances.”

“And I’ll go in myself and put in a seek and destroy virus to delete all the files mentioning me,” the Doctor said. “She may be good, but I’m better.”

“He said modestly,” she said dryly, hiding a smile, and he flashed a grin at her. He was so relieved to have her back and safe.

No, relief didn’t even begin to cover it.

Rose stood up and the Doctor scolded her.

“You are supposed to stay off of that,” he said, while Owen just shook his head.

“Yeah, I know,” Rose replied. “But we’ve got way too much to do for me to just sit around all day. People to interrogate, aliens to evict, planets to save…”

The Doctor laughed in spite of himself.

“Plus, I don’t know about you three, but I’m starving,” she said. “Why don’t we go and eat, yeah?”

But before they could walk out of the lab, Jackie came in carrying several bags and two travel cups from a local restaurant.

“Just breakfast sandwiches, rolls and coffee,” Jackie told them without preamble. “I had Todd go out and get it since I knew none of you had eaten yet.” 

“Oh, thank God,” Rose said with feeling. She carefully crossed the room, limping slightly and being careful not to trip over anything. Grabbing a bag from her mother, she opened it immediately, pulled out a roll and started eating. 

“What happened in here?” Jackie asked, looking at the pieces of equipment that were still scattered everywhere. She carefully picked her way around and through them. “What’d you do, blow something up?” 

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Jackie hadn’t waited for an answer. Turning to Owen and Ianto, she said, “I’ve got breakfast for the both of you as well. You can have yours in Pete’s office with us.”

Setting the coffee and the other bags down on the workbench, Jackie turned to the Doctor. “Have you told her yet?” she said in a low voice.

“I haven’t had a chance,” he told her.

“You tell her right away or I will,” Jackie told him firmly, this time not trying to control her volume.

Rose looked at them sharply. “Tell me what?” she asked.

“Oh, just that I’ve got to go home and take care of Tony,” Jackie said, thinking fast. She walked over to Rose and gave her a hug. At the same time, she glared over her shoulder at the Doctor. 

_Tell her now_ , she mouthed.

The Doctor nodded.

“Come on, you two.” Jackie motioned to Owen and Ianto, who followed her out of the lab.

After Jackie, Owen and Ianto had left, the Doctor and Rose sat down at the workbench to eat.

“Okay, what was all that about with my mum?” Rose asked between bites. “Cos whatever it was, it wasn’t about Tony. She would have told me that herself.”

The Doctor looked at her, trying to figure out where to begin. 

“Well, Rose,” he started, and then stopped. Behind her, the smart board displaying the missing stars caught his eye. He tilted his head, squinting at it in concentration. 

“Doctor?” Rose prompted.

He shook his head and held up one finger. “Just a tick,” he said. He got up and walked around her. He walked over to his jacket, pulled out his glasses and put them on. He tilted his head the other direction and peered at the smart board again.

Rose turned around on the stool where she sat and watched him. “Doctor?” Rose prompted again.

“It’ll keep,” he said, waving her off. She watched him curiously as he stared at the screen. 

“Rose,” he said finally, “I’m an idiot. I’m an absolute idiot. This is beyond being thick, this is absolute idiocy.” He turned and grinned at her. “I don’t need to know why these stars are gone or what they have in common, at least not for this. Now, we don’t know for certain that the energy creatures are from one of these stars, but let’s just say they probably are. If I can narrow down what we know about the creatures, given they are probably from one of these stars, maybe I can remember what they are. So what do we know about them?”

“Well,” she said, “they are an energy creature.”

“Okay, that narrows it down,” he said. “Most life forms are corporeal. What else?”

“They emit a blue light,” she said.

“Narrows it down,” He had unconsciously fallen into the speaking pattern of his ninth self again. “An energy creature that emits blue light from that sector of space. Think, think, think,” he told himself, rapping himself lightly on the head with his fist. He paused for a moment, staring at the screen again. “It’s not enough,” he said finally, shaking his head.

“Oh,” Rose exclaimed. “I forgot. Before my fight with Lisa Hallett, she was doing something odd. She was talking to her computer.”

The Doctor looked at her questioningly.

“She was talking to her computer and touching it, completely surrounded by blue light,” Rose elaborated. “The same kind of blue light that threw you across the room at the substation.”

His eyes widened. Was it possible… “Did you hear it talk to her?” he asked.

Rose shook her head.

“Do you remember what you told me about Dr. Bradford’s requirements for his assistants? They all had to be telepathic! Telepathy, Rose!” he exclaimed, his face lighting up. “Oh, of course! You’re the one who mentioned to me that the staff all had to be telepathic, and we assumed that the telepathy only went one way. But what if it didn’t? What if the creature itself is telepathic? A telepathic creature! But blue light, blue light…” He sighed and shook his head. “The energy I felt at the substation didn’t taste like artron energy…” He started to pace back and forth across the lab. With each pass he narrowly missed stepping on anything. “A telepathic energy creature that produces blue light…” Stopping, he turned and stared at the screen again, a look of concentration on his face.

“Doctor…” Rose began.

“Blue light, blue light…” he muttered to himself, not looking at her. He began to pace back and forth again. “No, the Androdines don’t produce any light at all… And the Fratosans aren’t strictly telepathic…”

“Doctor,” Rose said again, this time a little more loudly.

“But a telepathic energy creature…” He stopped and scratched his head, looking at the screen again. To Rose’s eyes, he looked as if he hadn’t even heard her.

“Doctor!” she yelled.

The Doctor turned around to face her, a puzzled look on his face.

“What, Rose?” he asked. “No need to shout.”

She sighed. “Doctor, what about petrol in a diesel engine? What if the creature is blue here, but emits light at a different wavelength in our home universe?”

He froze, staring at her. 

“Doctor, what? What is it?” Rose asked.

He crossed over to her and took her face in his hands. Slowly he grinned. 

“You, my dear Rose Tyler,” he said, drawing out her name, “are absolutely, absolutely, utterly brilliant.” He bent down to give her a kiss, which quickly became much more heated than he originally intended. Reluctantly, he broke away. “And you are also entirely too tempting,” he told her.

She grinned at him cheekily, the tip of her tongue peeking out between her teeth. It was a smile he had missed, one he hadn’t seen since before Canary Wharf, and it was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing her and kissing her again. He groaned in frustration and her grin grew wider.

“So whatever happened to the computer she was talking to?” the Doctor asked her, trying desperately to get back on track.

“I dunno. We brought it back in the Torchwood van that picked me up. They should have brought it up to the lab by now,” she answered. She patted her pockets looking for her mobile, intending to text the security team that had picked her up in an effort to track it down. Suddenly she remembered in irritation that Lisa had taken it from her. “Oh, by the way, I meant to thank you for that. When I escaped, I found it sitting practically in front of the house where I was being held. I know you had something to do with that.” 

She looked up but instead of the self-satisfied grin she expected to see on his face, he had an odd combination of sadness and pride for her on his face. 

“Oh, you didn’t need me, Rose,” he said quietly. He pulled off his glasses and set them on the workbench. “You would have managed without me. In fact, you did manage without me. I just wish I had been quicker. I should have figured it out sooner. And I should have been there to rescue you. I wanted to be.”

She took his hand. “Listen to me,” she said, looking into his eyes. “This is not your fault. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine for trying to confront Lisa without you.”

The Doctor still looked sad and troubled, and again she was struck by the realization of how worried he had been about her. While she had been missing, she had known she was alright, but he hadn’t.

“Hey, I’m okay. See? I’m alright,” she tried to assure him again. Her left hand squeezed his right, and she lifted up her right hand, the one in the brace, to gently brush through his thick, dark hair with her fingertips. He closed his eyes in response, and she leaned forward and kissed him, just gently brushing her lips with his. He opened his eyes and stared at her intently, and then, pulling her into his arms, he kissed her back, so slowly and thoroughly she felt her toes curl in response. She wrapped her arms around him.

They only broke apart at the sound of the lab door opening.

“Oops, excuse me, didn’t mean to intrude,” said a voice from the doorway. The Doctor looked over and saw it was the security guard that Pete had introduced as Filbin the previous day. “I have both of Lisa Hallett’s computers for you, Ms. Tyler.” He put them both on a clear spot on the workbench.

“Both?” the Doctor asked, after Rose had thanked Filbin and he had left.

“Yeah,” she answered. “There were two there.”

“Which one was she using to communicate with the alien?”

“Actually, I’m not sure. I really didn’t get a good look at the computer at the time. I was just so shocked to see her surrounded by the blue light and not be affected by it. I didn’t realize she had two of them until I was searching the house for something to restrain her with.”

The idea that Rose had had to do that alone troubled him, but he forced himself to bury the feelings. She had done far, far more, he reminded himself, when she had been searching for him.

“Well, then, let’s take a look, shall we?” he said to her.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she worried, thinking about what had happened to him at the substation.

“Well, we’ve never had a problem with the aliens when the power’s been off, and I really don’t think we will now,” he told her. “Any number of people have handled the computers since they’ve been here, and Filbin just carried them up here with no problem. But I have a new alien detector, technically the Alien Detector 2.0, 2.1 if you want to be really technical, because I did have to make some modifications to it, was picking up Radio Thailand instead of aliens…” At the look Rose was giving him he broke off from his train of thought. He cleared his throat and pulled on his left ear. “Anyway, we can check both computers out first before we work with them.”

He walked over to where they sat on the workbench, being careful to step over the broken equipment that was still strewn all over the floor, and grabbed his alien detector. But before he scanned the computers, he looked them over.

And did a double take.

When they had first arrived in Bradford’s lab, he had discovered a mention of an alien communication device, and he had searched the lab for it. He never had found the alien device in all the hours he had spent in the lab since then, but during that first search he had noticed a small computer sitting among a variety of other equipment on the counter. It had been a tiny thing, of the size often called a notebook computer or a netbook rather than a laptop. Slim and stripped down, it had hardly enough memory to do anything other than check one’s email and perhaps write a document or two. It had been an incongruity at the time. Why would a bunch of tech-savvy scientists need a tiny computer, one that was practically worthless? He hadn’t given it much thought at the time, humans kept all sorts of odd things for all sorts of odd reasons, but apparently he had been wrong, because its twin was sitting right in front of him.

He glanced over at the countertop for the other computer and stopped, raising his eyebrows. It wasn’t there. The computer that he thought was a duplicate to the one on the countertop wasn’t a duplicate. It was the same computer.

“Rose,” he said slowly, circling around the workbench. He didn’t take his eyes off the little netbook. “Where were you when you confronted Lisa Hallett? Before she kidnapped you?” Cocking his head, he continued to stare at the thing, almost as if it were a rattlesnake.

“Here,” she responded. “I had thought she’d head back to her office, but she didn’t. She headed here.”

“And now I think I know why,” he said. “She must have come back for this.”

He picked up his alien detector, the Alien Detector 2.1 to be technical, and, turning it on, he scanned the netbook. The detector hummed and lit up, but weakly. He furrowed his brow. Was the detector not working properly, or…

“What’s wrong with it?” Rose asked from her spot at the far end of the workbench.

“Dunno,” he said. “Still trying to figure that out. If there is an alien in that thing, this detector should be lighting up like a Christmas tree. As it is, I’m barely getting a signal. So either this thing doesn’t work, or…”

“Or maybe the thing isn’t in there?” Rose guessed.

He shook his head. “No, I am getting a signal, so it is in there. It’s just… it’s just like it’s dying.”

“Maybe it needs more energy,” Rose suggested.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “But then this creature isn’t an energy _source_ at all.”

Gingerly, the Doctor lifted the screen of the netbook to open it. A weak blue light shone from the keyboard. Carefully, he turned on the machine. The netbook surged to life, but the blue light of the creature stayed weak. 

“Hmm,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t understand it. According to this, the battery has full power, yet the creature isn’t producing energy, and it doesn’t seem to be taking energy from the battery either.” He stared at the netbook for a moment. “We need to find Bradford’s energy collectors.”

“Let’s go, Rose,” he said, grabbing his blue suit jacket off the chair where it was laying and putting it on. He jerked his head toward the door and then he remembered her injuries. “On second thought,” he said, turning back to her, “you’d better stay here. You need to stay off that ankle.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You are not leaving me here,” she said firmly. “You might need me.”

At hearing her response, he crossed over to her and gently took her face in his hands.

“Oh, no, Rose,” he said softly, kissing her on her forehead. “That’s where you’re wrong. I _always_ need you.”

She leaned forward to kiss him, but to her surprise he backed out of reach. 

“Later,” he promised in a low voice that made her heart race, “and later we also really, really need to talk. But first,” he said, his face breaking into a manic grin, “you and I need to go and catch some aliens.”


	31. Chapter Thirty

In Pete Tyler’s Torchwood office, Jackie, Pete, Owen, Ianto and Todd Richards were sitting around his desk, eating a breakfast of egg sandwiches and sticky buns from a local fast food restaurant. Todd had also made a special trip to pick up coffee at Starbucks, which he knew Jackie liked. When they were finished with their breakfast, Jackie pushed back her chair and stood.

“Got to go,” she said. “Got to get back to Tony. Hopefully he isn’t even up yet and doesn’t know I’ve been gone. And Mrs. McDonald will want to get home.” She leaned forward and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek. “See ya at home,” she said. She picked up her latte and took it with her as she left.

As Ianto and Owen stood to leave as well, Todd began to clean the desk of wrappers and the rest of the disposable coffee cups, dumping them in the bin.

“Sir,” Ianto said to Torchwood’s Director, “with your permission I’d like to continue to do a bit of research into this whole situation.” 

“Of course,” Pete answered. “You can work in the lab. And if you need anything, just ask Todd.”

The younger man smiled and nodded. “I live to serve,” he joked.

As Ianto moved to leave, Owen began to follow him.

“Just a minute, Dr. Harper,” Pete said. He nodded to Todd, who nodded back. Pete’s assistant left, quietly closing the door behind him. “Please, have a seat. I think we need to have a talk.”

 

The Doctor drove slowly down the side streets of the London neighborhood in the Aston Martin, top down, while Rose held the alien detector in her lap. Twice as big as his last one, it had a number of additional displays and dials. Small lights lined the top, and she had noticed it looked as if it had the speaker from an old mobile built into the side. Knowing the Doctor, Rose guessed it probably did. She turned it over and saw it had several USB ports built into the back.

“What’s this thing supposed to do?” she asked. 

“Just what the other one did, Rose, detect aliens, but this one has a far greater range and has a greater capability in detecting energy signatures and wavelengths along the visible range. I’ve got it calibrated specifically to find the creatures we are looking for and to ignore corporeal aliens.” He glanced at her and saw her raising her eyebrows at him. “It’s set to ignore aliens that have physical bodies.”

She rolled her eyes. “I do know what corporeal means.”

Before leaving Torchwood, they had used the smart board to look at the neighborhoods around the substation in detail. By zooming in, Rose had been able to show him exactly where she had been held captive. They had searched the surrounding streets for signs of anything that looked like energy collectors, but they had found nothing and so had decided to take the low tech approach. They were driving up and down streets, scanning for energy signatures.

“And we had to take my dad’s car, why?” Rose asked.

“Oh, I would have thought that should have been obvious,” he told her. He turned the corner to the next street.

Rose waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t she prompted him again.

“Doctor, the car?” she asked.

“Don’t you want to guess?” he asked. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes again. “Oh, alright. Three reasons. One, it’s a convertible. Driving with the top down allows the Alien Detector 2.1 to pick up signals much more easily than if we were driving in an enclosed car.” He drove down the street slowly, almost at a crawl. “Keep an eye on the display, Rose. We’ve got to be getting close.”

She glanced at it. None of the lights were on, and the displays were blank. The only indication it was working was a low hum coming from the speaker. “Not doing anything yet,” she said.

“No?” he asked disappointedly. “It should have a range of about a quarter mile, unless the alien is actually joined with someone. Then the range is considerably less.” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, we do still have several blocks to go.”

“Doctor, you said three reasons about the car, but you only gave me one. What’s the second one?”

“Did I? Oh yes. The second reason is that I still had the keys to it in my pocket,” he said. He glanced at her and winked.

Rose laughed. “Is there anything you don’t have in those pockets?”

“Oh, maybe one or two things,” he said. “I don’t have a sonic screwdriver, for instance, and believe me, that is a true tragedy. However, I do have that bag of Jelly Babies if you want one. I put it in my pocket before we left for Cardiff. The orange ones aren’t too bad.”

She shook her head. “Maybe later.” 

“Anything yet?” he asked hopefully, with a sideways glance at his machine.

She examined the box again. Still quiet, not a single light flashing. “Nope.”

“Hmm,” he frowned. Maybe the range on his detector wasn’t as great as he thought.

“Doctor, number three?” she asked. “The third reason we had to take Dad’s car?”

He grinned at her mischievously and her heart did a little flip. God, he was gorgeous.

“The third reason… is cos it’s just so cool to be tracking aliens in an Aston Martin.” He sang a little of the James Bond theme and waggled his eyebrows at her. “Da de de da da, da da da da de de da da.”

Rose burst out laughing. “So you’re James Bond now?”

“Don’t laugh. I save the planet from megalomaniacs trying to take over, I’ve got cool gadgets, well, I did have cool gadgets and will have again once I build my new sonic, I’ve got the car now, and I’ve got a gorgeous blonde at my side.” He nodded, consideringly. “Yep, I’d say I’m James Bond. Maybe I should have picked that name… has a nicer ring to it than John Smith.”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” she asked, a bit flabbergasted by his comment but trying not to show it.

“Of course I do. Well, usually at least, but maybe not this second,” he said appraisingly, looking at her scrapes, messy hair, and dirty and torn clothing. She raised her eyebrow at him. He grimaced. “Ooo, was that rude? Sorry. Still appear to be rude. And getting a bit of Donna in the meta-crisis won’t help that. She had a mouth on her… Still does, in all likelihood.” He sighed and pulled a face. “I’ve probably got a double dose of rudeness nowadays.” 

“So what exactly is this alien we are looking for?” she asked, letting him off the hook.

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” he said, inwardly grateful for the change of subject. “I’ve been looking at this the wrong way ‘round this whole time. If I’m right, and I usually am, although it sometimes takes me a while obviously, we’re looking for a species called the Kern, or at least that’s what they’re called in our home universe. Imagine that’s what they’re called here as well. Anyway, they are a telepathic race that lives symbiotically with another, corporeal species on Mizar 6, although they are known for taking hosts from other telepathic species. They typically don’t spend much time separate from their host, usually only when they are looking for a new one. In our home universe, they sometimes emit a yellowish green color, kind of a chartreuse, especially when they are looking to join with a new host.”

“Kind of like a mating call? Sending out a light to attract a mate?” she asked.

“Well, erm, yes, I suppose so, in some ways,” he said, slightly uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and pointedly didn’t look at her. He really didn’t want to talk about mating in any context with Rose right now. Not even the mating calls of alien species. He needed to focus, and it was difficult enough as it was with all the kissing they had done earlier. Remembering the kissing, especially that first kiss in the lab, he felt his face flush and he could feel Rose watching him. Blimey, this human tendency to blush was annoying.

She looked at him curiously. His face was slowly turning red and she wondered what specifically he was thinking about. He was so adorable when he was embarrassed.

“Anyway,” he said, drawing out the word and desperately trying to get back on track. “They aren’t an energy source… Like most life forms, they consume some form of energy or other to survive.”

“So why are they going around in the power lines killing people?” Rose asked.

“Dunno,” he said. “I expect we’ll find out when we find them.”

“How?”

“The usual way.” At the blank expression on her face, he grinned at her. “We’ll ask them.”

“What?” she demanded, but then the box on her lap started humming and flashing. 

“Yes!” he shouted and pulled the car to the kerb. Getting out of the car, Rose looked around. They were surrounded by abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Probably due to the early hour, the road was completely deserted as far as she could see in both directions. But it wasn’t all that early, she thought. There ought to be some people about. The neighborhood was right on the edge of the Rowling St. shopping district, Rose realized with a start. And only a couple of streets away from where she had been held captive. And…

“We’re only a few blocks away from the substation,” she said.

The Doctor put the top up on the car and then took his Alien Detector 2.1 out of her hands. From a small compartment on the side that Rose hadn’t noticed, he withdrew something that looked like a microphone and waved it around. The machine started clicking like a Geiger counter. 

“Are you going to be up for this?” he asked her. “Bradford’s energy collector should be close, but we will have to walk to get there. Maybe you should stay in the car.” At the glare she gave him, “Never mind. Lost my head for a second there. Must have forgotten for a moment who I was talking to.”

“Doctor, you are not leaving me behind,” she informed him. “Besides, my ankle doesn’t even hurt anymore. Owen did say it wasn’t sprained. And my wrist is hardly bothering me at all either.”

The Doctor had been examining the displays on his machine, but at hearing this he looked sharply up at her. Setting it down on the ground, he crossed to Rose and, without removing the brace stabilizing her right wrist, examined both her wrists again. Then he bent down and examined her ankles. It shouldn’t have been possible, but the swelling was almost completely gone in both her wrists and her ankles. His mind returned to Cardiff and Owen’s examination of Rose.

_“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Owen had said to her._

The Doctor stood, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. She was healing much too quickly. And without the TARDIS, he didn’t have the medical equipment to find out why. 

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked him.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, plastering a false smile on his face. “Swelling is almost gone,” he said brightly. _One problem at a time_ , he told himself. “Shall we go?”

They headed across the vacant lot, stepping over and around rocks and weeds, discarded beer cans and empty Vitex bottles, following the clicking on the Doctor’s machine. At the edge of the property they were stopped by a tall, chain link fence. He waved the sensor back and forth and examined the readings that appeared on his machine.

“This way,” he said, turning to the right.

They followed the fence line behind several large, graffiti covered buildings before they reached a locked gate. Behind it, within a fenced off area, Rose saw a number of pieces of equipment. Most of them were flat, dark panels on poles. From where she stood she could see that the panels could move, presumably to adjust to the rotation of the earth and track some specific location in space. She guessed they were the energy collectors. Next to them stood a tower approximately twenty-five feet high. Five foot square at the base, the steel framework contained a large metal box built into it with conduits emerging from the top and the bottom. The tubes that led upwards entered another metal box approximately fifteen feet up. At the top of the structure sat something that looked like a large satellite dish. 

“Is this it?” Rose asked.

The Doctor double checked the displays on his alien detector. All the lights were flashing and the machine made a loud squealing noise. The sound echoed, bouncing off the surrounding buildings.

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’. He flipped a switch and the squealing stopped, leaving a silence that was almost deafening. After a moment, they could hear the sounds of traffic in the distance.

“I assume those are the energy collectors,” she said, gesturing at the things that resembled solar panels. “But that doesn’t look like an energy collector to me.” She pointed at the tower with the satellite dish. “That looks more like…”

“A beacon,” they said together.

“I don’t understand,” Rose said. “I thought you said Bradford’s plans described something that looked like solar panels. You didn’t say anything about a beacon.”

“The plans didn’t mention it,” he answered. He took another reading with his alien detector and examined the screen. “This is it, though. The readings are coming from the beacon. Why wasn’t this mentioned in the records?”

“To cover their tracks,” Rose realized suddenly. “I told you before, since the war, even though the Cybermen were built by Lumic, people are very nervous about anything that smacks of aliens. Torchwood spends most of its time tracking down rumors of aliens and covering them up. There is no way anyone would be allowed to try to attract aliens here. And why would they want to?”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “And the answer to that is on the other side of that gate.” He looked at the fence appraisingly. He could climb over, no problem, but then he wouldn’t have his equipment. And there was no way Rose could climb over with a sprained wrist. And he couldn’t sonic it, he thought in frustration. He had had no idea how dependent he had grown on always having a sonic screwdriver at his fingertips.

Rose could guess by the expression on his face what he was thinking. 

“Doctor,” she said, “have you got a couple of hair pins on you?” She thought she might have seen a few when she had pulled everything out of his pockets that first night back.

After searching his pockets for a bit, pulling out various oddities she didn’t remember seeing previously (honestly, why on Earth did he have fake vampire teeth in his pocket), and stopping to shove a red Jelly Baby in his mouth, he managed to find a couple of hair pins. Taking them, she bent down and started to work on the lock. It was a little difficult with the brace on her wrist, but she managed.

“Lock picking? Interesting skills they teach you at Torchwood,” he said in amusement.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she told him, “but actually…” She slowly twisted one of the hair pins in the lock. “This… I learned… from Jack. Just hardly ever… had hair pins on me… when I’d get locked in someplace. Guess I just need to wear my hair up more often.” A look of intense concentration came over her face as she worked the hair pin back and forth. The lock sprung open. “Ha!” she said, grinning at him triumphantly. 

He grinned back at her, fighting off the urge to kiss her. Now that kissing was something they evidently did, and did really, really well, he was finding it difficult not to kiss her over everything and anything she did. Or said. Or when she looked at him like that. Or when she looked at him in any way at all, really. Focus, Doctor, he told himself firmly.

Entering the gate, he walked completely around the beacon. It appeared to be connected to the power grid through a series of conduits at its base. Finally he found what he was looking for, a large switch behind a door in the lower steel box.

“Circuit breaker,” he said, flipping it to off. “Don’t want the power to come back on while I’m working on this thing.”

“Oh, yeah, why’s the power off anyway?” Rose asked.

The Doctor quickly explained how he and Pete had decided to try and slow down the disappearances by preventing the aliens’ ability to travel through the power lines. “I understand that the lorry hitting the substation knocked out the power to a quarter of London,” he told her. “I don’t know how long he’s going to be able to keep the power out, though.” 

He opened up a different panel on the steel box. Inside, the electrical panel crackled and glowed with an eerie blue light. “Found ‘em,” he said unnecessarily. “Ooo, and there it is.”

“There is what?” Rose asked.

“Remember how I told you that Bradford had discovered his new energy source in an alien piece of technology that came up through the Rift?” Rose looked over his shoulder as he pointed out a small piece of alien electronics embedded in the electrical panel. “That’s it right there.”

He pulled a USB cable from his pocket and connected it to the back of his alien detector. Then he pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket.

All of a sudden, Rose realized what he was going to try to do. “Wait a minute. You can’t,” she protested. “Last time you touched that thing it almost killed you.”

“Last time I had only been in this universe a few days,” he said. “Since then, the energy in my body should have come more closely in alignment with the energy of this universe. If it has, and if I’m right about this being the Kern, I should be fine.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Despite her best efforts, an edge of fear crept into her voice.

His jaw tightened in determination. “I’m just going to try to contact it telepathically,” he said, intentionally not answering her question. “If Lisa Hallett can do it, I can. I’m a much stronger telepath than she is.” He turned to her and looked deeply into her eyes. “Rose, I need you to promise me something. No matter what happens, don’t touch me, don’t touch the Alien Detector, and, above all, don’t touch the beacon. I can’t risk losing you again.”

“I can’t risk losing you, either,” she said vehemently.

“You won’t,” he assured her. And this time he did kiss her, a hard, quick kiss to punctuate his promise. 

“Now stand back,” he ordered, and she backed up into the chain link fence.

Pulling on the rubber gloves, he attached the USB cable to a port in the beacon’s control panel. Then he pulled off the gloves. He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush.

“Wish me luck,” he said.

“Luck,” she said nervously. She tried to smile at him encouragingly, but she crossed her fingers behind her back where he couldn’t see them.

Closing his eyes, he reached out and touched his machine lightly with the fingertips of his hand, and at the same time he extended his mind telepathically. Instantly, he felt a tingling warmth encircle his fingers and travel up his arm. He fought the urge to pull his hand away, and the tingling sensation wrapped around his entire body.

“Doctor!” Rose gasped as a glowing blue light slowly encased him. Her heart pounded in fear for his safety, but he seemed to be alright.

“Who are you?” Rose heard him say aloud, and was surprised to hear a response.

_“We are those who seek.”_ The words echoed, as if more than one voice were speaking at the same time, and emanated from the speaker built into the side of the Alien Detector. The sound bounced off the nearby buildings, amplifying the effect. It sounded to Rose as if the sound was coming from everywhere.

“Seek?” asked the Doctor. “What do you seek?

_“We seek a new home.”_

“Why?” 

_“Our sun exploded, destroying all corporeal life on our planet. We seek a new home, and a new species to join.”_

“What made your sun explode?” the Doctor asked.

_“A powerful wave of energy rippling through space destroyed our sun and the nearby stars around us.”_

“A wave of energy? Do you know what kind? What caused it? Or where it came from?”

_“No,”_ was the answer that echoed out of the alien detector’s speaker.

The Doctor sighed in disappointment. He had hoped that the Kern would be able to solve that little mystery for him.

“Why come here?” he asked. “If you are looking for a new host species, you need one that is telepathic. Humans, as wonderful and as extraordinary as they are, are by and large not telepathic. In fact, most of them are fairly mind blind.”

_“We were invited.”_

“Invited?” The Doctor sounded incredulous. “What do you mean you were invited? Who invited you?”

_“Those who wish to rule.”_ The chorus of voices echoed through the small speaker of the Doctor’s Alien Detector. _“When we knew our sun was about to explode, those who were joined to us sent us to seek a new home. We traveled through a rift in space and arrived here. We met ones who wished to join with us. Those who join with us will be empowered to rule this world. Joining with us brings knowledge, wisdom, and power to the host. They will be fit to rule.”_

“What is it about Earth that brings out all the power-hungry aliens to want to come here and take over?” The Doctor sounded disgusted. “No, don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question. If your planet has been destroyed, and you want to come here to find a new host species, how many of you are there?”

_“We were two dozen, and now we are twelve. But there are seven million who wish to join.”_

“What! Seven million!” Shock was evident in the Doctor’s voice. “You won’t find seven million telepathic humans here. Seven thousand maybe. Seventy thousand if you include everyone, and I mean everyone, with any type of latent telepathic or empathic ability at all, but seven million?”

Rose was watching and listening in amazement. So this energy species thought that they could come here and what, possess humans and take over the planet? And what did they mean, they had been invited by those who wished to rule? That sounded far more ominous than the aliens just showing up on their own and wanting to take over. And what did that have to do with all the people disappearing? The Doctor was in telepathic communication with the aliens and she really didn’t want to distract him, but he really needed to ask about the missing people.

“Doctor, what about Kate Lee and the others who disappeared?” Rose asked.

“Oh, yeah,” the Doctor said, seemingly not at all bothered by Rose’s interruption. “What about all the missing people? Why are you lot making people disappear?”

_“When we are not joined, we require energy to survive.”_

“But you’re in the bloody power lines,” he said. “Can’t get more energetic than that.”

_“Life requires the energy of life,”_ was the answer that echoed from the speaker. _“When we need energy, we seek life. We join with the sentient. We absorb the non-sentient.”_

“Humans are sentient,” the Doctor insisted. “They just aren’t telepathic. Listen, I know what you want, but you’re in the wrong place for it. There are thousands of planets out there with telepathic species who would be willing to join with you. Raxicon 5, Seleby 7, in fact the entire Starburst Nebula is filled with…”

_“We were invited,”_ the voices echoed again, interrupting him. _“And we have found another suitable host for joining.”_

“What do you mean?” he asked. Rose noticed his voice had dropped and had become more serious.

_“Another host has been found.”_ The chorus of voices that echoed through the speaker sounded jubilant.

“What? Me? No,” the Doctor answered. “Thanks very much for the offer, but not interested.”

_“We hear the loneliness in your mind. So alone, so very alone for so long. And what was one is now two, and both feel the loss. And now the true Companion is gone as well. Joining would bring healing. You would never be alone again.”_

“No,” the Doctor said softly but firmly. The determination in his voice was touched by just a hint of sadness that broke Rose’s heart to hear. “Joining is not for me. I will not join with you.”

_“Your joining must be willingly undertaken,”_ the voices from the box said. _“We grieve for your aloneness.”_

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Now I must find the rest of you. I can’t have you all traveling through the power lines trying to possess people. You said there were originally two dozen of you, and now there are only a dozen. Where are the rest?”

_“Some were in the energy lines seeking to join. When the energy stopped, they could not return. It has been too long for them. They have been apart from us too long and too long without the energy of corporeal life as well. They are no more. The others are apart from us.”_

“How many have already joined?” he asked, a serious tone to his voice.

_“Twelve are here, and seven are no more,”_ was the answer.

“So we may have up to five of you all who have already joined. I’ll need to find the rest of them as well. Humans weren’t made to be joined. Their brains aren’t designed for it. The human brain is extremely delicate. It can’t withstand the presence of another mind within it. Even the strongest telepathic humans would be overwhelmed and crushed mentally.” The Doctor paused thoughtfully. “So what’s with the beacon?”

_“Those who stay here call to the rest. The beacon sends the message to them.”_

“Well, you’re gonna have to stop that. We can’t have seven million of you showing up on our doorstep.”

_“We were invited,”_ the chorus of voices insisted.

“Well, consider yourselves uninvited, mates!” he said loudly in frustration. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. When he continued, it was at a much gentler tone. “Listen, I can try to figure out a way to get you someplace where you can meet another species you can join with, but I’m kinda limited in my resources right now. But you have to stop calling the rest of your friends. Humans just can’t join with you. You’d end up wiping out the entire species before you found even a fraction of the number of hosts you need.”

_“You would help us?”_

“I can’t make any promises, but I can try. But you will have to stop calling the others and enter my machine here. From there I’ll try to find a place where you can stay safely while you are waiting.”

His comments were met with a silence which stretched to minutes. Finally, the chorus of voices echoed again from the small speaker on the alien detector.

_“We have conferred and will agree to your request. Thank you, Doctor,”_ the chorus of voices echoed. _“Thank you.”_

And then the light surrounding the Doctor slowly swirled backwards, releasing him and coming to rest in the alien detector. The Doctor lifted his hand off the box, and staggered, exhausted from the connection. Rose rushed to him and caught him before he fell.

“Are you alright?” she asked him in concern.

The Doctor nodded, too exhausted to speak for the moment. He reached over and disconnected his box from the beacon, and then dropped to sit on the ground. Rose sat down next to him, took his hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back. Leaning against her with his head on her shoulder, he weakly smiled at her. 

Rose’s heart went out to him. When the aliens had offered to join with him mentally, he had been firm in his refusal, but she was certain she had heard a note of longing in his voice. She remembered what he had said about the TARDIS, that night she had found him on the balcony, and how alone he had said his mind felt. She was certain no amount of her hand holding could make up for that.

And what was all that about one becoming two and both feeling the loss? She was almost afraid to ask him what that meant.

“So what’s next?” Rose asked finally, after she was certain he had recovered somewhat.

He paused before answering, feeling like he had run a marathon. _Human bodies are rubbish_ , he thought. One night without sleep and he was exhausted. And his wasn’t even completely human. He and Rose both needed some rest, but there was still so much left to do.

“Next, we bring these creatures back to Torchwood and figure out how to get them off planet. And we dismantle that thing,” he said, with a jerk of his head toward the beacon, “so no more of them show up. 

“And,” he said finally, “we question Lisa Hallett, and try and figure out where the rest of them are.”


	32. Chapter Thirty-One

The Doctor and Rose had three surprises waiting for them when they got back to the lab at Torchwood Four. First, the door was still unlocked. Or unlocked again, if a person wanted to be technical, and the Doctor, being the Doctor, did. Rose just shook her head and tried to ignore him as he sounded like he was going to do ten minutes on the difference between it still being unlocked and being unlocked again because he absolutely, most certainly had locked it as they had left.

“I know I locked it, Rose,” he continued as they walked through the door. “I absolutely, positively…”

And was seemingly struck dumb as they walked into the immaculate lab. That was the second surprise.

As they walked into the lab, the first thing they noticed was that all the pieces of equipment that had been lying all over every available space, workbench, counter and floor, had been picked up and organized into neat little piles on the counter based on whether or not it was human or alien in origin, the type of equipment it had come from, and size. All the papers lying around had been put into piles, and seemed to have been organized as well. Stray pens and pencils seemed to have been put away, rubbish left over from previous meals had been put in the bin, mugs had been washed and stacked, and chairs and stools had been pushed into their respective spots. And the smart board had been rolled to one side, out of the way of everything else.

And Ianto Jones worked quietly on one of the computer terminals.

Rose didn’t know if she was happier that the lab was cleaned up (since she didn’t have to do it) or that the clean lab seemed to shock the Doctor into silence.

The long, narrow workbench was almost completely cleaned off. Almost, because at one end of the workbench were Lisa Hallett’s computers. And the third surprise was that at the other end were a thermos and a covered dish along with two plates, two napkins, and two mugs.

“Ianto,” Rose said delightedly. “Thank you so much. You are absolutely fantastic. But you didn’t have to do this.”

“It was the least I could do, Rose,” he said without turning.

Rose opened her mouth to respond, but the Doctor had evidently recovered his voice.

“Look, Rose! Chocolate chip cookies!” he exclaimed, having lifted the cover of the dish. “And shortbread! And Jammie Dodgers!” He shoved a whole one in his mouth. “Marvelous,” he said, his mouth full.

Rose opened the thermos and filled both mugs. She handed one to the Doctor and they took sips simultaneously. They both moaned in pleasure at the taste and sank onto stools next to the workbench.

“How’d you make the coffee?” Rose asked.

Ianto indicated a coffee maker tucked away on a small table in the corner. “It was stowed in a cupboard,” he said. “Just needed a thorough cleaning.”

Rose doubted that was all there was to it. Anyone could make coffee, but no one she had ever met made it like Ianto. Ianto seemed to have a gift for it.

“Tosh was right, Ianto,” the Doctor said. “She said you were probably a barista in another life. I think I agree. Maybe not a previous life, though, maybe a parallel one. I don’t remember coffee ever being this good.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ianto responded.

“Not sir, Ianto. Just ‘Doctor’,” the Doctor answered, and then seemed to remember something. He pulled on his ear with his free hand and frowned. “Or John, these days.”

“Ianto,” Rose said, “he prefers Doctor. Just call him that.”

The Doctor’s face lit up at Rose’s response and he grinned widely at her. She grinned back.

“So what are you working on, Ianto?” Rose asked, crossing over to him and looking over his shoulder at the computer screen.

“I am trying to track the whereabouts of Sean Callahan for the past three months,” he said, still looking at the monitor in front of him.

“You mean when he was supposed to be at Cambridge?” the Doctor asked, crossing over to him as well.

Ianto nodded. “We know he never got there, and I’m trying to figure out where he’s been.”

“You think he may have been here the whole time?” Rose asked. 

He shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

At the sound of the lab door opening, they all turned to see Owen Harper striding into the room.

“Good, you’re back,” Owen said. “Just wanted to tell you I was going.”

“You’re leaving?” asked Rose. “Already?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Gwen needs me back, so I’m off.” He crossed over to Rose. “Glad you’re okay, Tyler,” he said. He had put his arms up as if he was about to hug her, and then seemed to catch sight of the Doctor, who had his arms crossed and was scowling at him. Harper dropped his arms without touching her. “I’d say goodbye, but I have a feeling I’m going to see you fairly soon.”

He held his hand out to the Doctor, who shook it this time.

“Ianto, see you back in Cardiff,” Owen called over his shoulder as he walked out.

Ianto grunted at him in response.

After Owen was gone, Rose turned to the Doctor. “What do you think he meant, ‘I have a feeling I’m going to see you fairly soon.’”

The Doctor shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Ianto, do you know?” Rose asked.

“I have spent the better part of my professional life trying not to think about what Owen Harper means when he says things,” he responded.

She laughed for a moment, and then turned thoughtful. “Ianto, why didn’t you go with him?” she asked.

At this, Ianto turned and faced her. “Rose,” he said quietly, “I just don’t understand why Lisa is acting the way she is. And until I do, I’m staying here.”

 

 

The interrogation room at Torchwood Four looked like most interrogation rooms on countless worlds all over the universe. It was a small, nondescript room, with a rectangular table in the center and chairs on both sides. CCTV cameras were hung in various places near the ceiling, capturing every angle of the room, and a two-way mirror covered one wall. The only difference for the Doctor between this interrogation room and most of the others he had been in was he was usually the one being interrogated rather than the one doing the questioning.

Lisa Hallett had already been grilled by professional interrogators for three hours before the Doctor had entered the room. In that time they had learned absolutely nothing and were beginning to consider using Veratised on her when Rose had intervened.

“Why don’t you let the Doctor question her?” she had asked her step-father.

Rose and the Doctor had already briefed Pete on the telepathic nature of the aliens and the events at the beacon before she had made her suggestion. Pete had been skeptical about the Doctor being involved with this portion of the investigation, but he had eventually agreed, reasoning the Doctor couldn’t do any worse than Torchwood’s interrogators had. And of course if he failed, they would still be able to use Veratised on her later.

“Dr. Hallett, what a pleasure it is to see you… in custody,” the Doctor said upon entering the small room. Lisa Hallett was already in place, seated at the far side of the table, opposite the two-way mirror. Despite the Doctor’s grin and his light tone, inwardly he was seething. This was the woman who had hurt Rose, kidnapping, drugging and hitting her. The desire to make her pay for that was right below the surface, but he reminded himself that he needed to stay focused to get the information they needed.

After he greeted Lisa Hallett, he turned and looked in the mirror, brushing back his hair and surveying his face, as if he was looking to see if he had missed a spot shaving. He suddenly frowned, as if just noticing he hadn’t shaved in more than a day.

In the darkened observation room on the other side of the glass, Pete and Rose watched as the Doctor grimaced in the mirror. Rose tried to stifle a giggle as she saw him checking his teeth by running his tongue along them. 

“Can they see or hear us?” Rose asked her stepfather quietly. She really didn’t want Lisa Hallett to know she was back here. It might influence how she answered some questions.

“Absolutely not,” Pete responded. “This room is sound-proofed. They cannot hear us, and we can only hear them because of the microphones in the CCTV.”

Although Rose knew he couldn’t be certain where she was in the observation room, for a moment the Doctor appeared to look right at her. He grinned and winked before he turned around to face Hallett. He sat down across from her, leaned back in his chair and immediately put his trainer-clad feet on the interrogation table.

Arms crossed over his chest, Pete raised one eyebrow and turned to Rose.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked dubiously. “He doesn’t appear to be taking this seriously.”

“Just wait,” Rose answered, trying to reassure him. “He’s trying to put her off her guard. He’s brilliant at this. Just don’t tell him I said that, his ego’s big enough as it is.”

The Doctor turned back to the mirror and smirked at her before turning to face Lisa Hallett again.

Rose’s eyes widened, and she turned to Pete.

“Are you sure he can’t hear me?” Rose asked her stepfather. He shrugged, puzzled. They both turned their attention back to the conversation in the other room.

“Doctor John Smith,” Hallett was saying in the interrogation room, “if that truly is your name.”

“Oh, why be so formal?” the Doctor said to her. “Lisa… can I call you Lisa?”

“No, I prefer Doctor Hallett,” she replied. “You can’t keep me here, you know.”

“Oh, Lisa, I think you’d be surprised at what I can do,” he answered evenly.

“I’ll be out of here before you know it.” It came out sounding more like she was stating a fact rather than bragging, and the Doctor raised one eyebrow.

“I highly doubt that.” The Doctor pulled a white paper bag out of his jacket pocket and thrust it at her. “So, Lisa, care for a Jelly Baby?” he asked. She lifted her arms up as far as they would go, which was only a few inches, demonstrating that she was handcuffed to the chair and couldn’t reach them. “No? Well, you’re not missing much. They really aren’t as good as I remember. Particularly the green ones. Pear flavored.” He pulled a face and shuddered. “The orange ones aren’t too bad, though.” He pulled one out of the bag and popped it into his mouth.

In the other room, the door opened and Ianto Jones entered quietly. He crossed the room to stand next to Rose.

Back in the interrogation room, the Doctor withdrew another Jelly Baby, this one purple, tossed it in the air and moved his head to catch it in his mouth.

“So what am I supposed to call you? Shall I call you John?” Lisa asked him. “Oh, of course not, as that is not your real name.”

“Ooo, you got me,” he said. “You can call me the Doctor.”

“Yes, but Doctor who?”

The Doctor grinned and chuckled softly. “Just ‘the Doctor’,” he said.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m a doctor as well. In fact, I have multiple doctorates.”

“Oh, you might be a doctor, but I’m the Doctor.” His smile widened, turning into a manic grin that would have been familiar on his ninth self’s face.

“So you admit it. You see, I know all about you. You’re an alien. You don’t belong here.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“And neither does your little girlfriend, Rose,” she said. “Pete Tyler’s daughter, isn’t she? Funny thing about her, though. She didn’t exist until almost seven years ago. I searched her records at the same time I searched yours.”

The Doctor’s grin faded. His eyes narrowed at her.

“When she first showed up,” Hallett told him, “it had been reported to the public that they had kept her existence a secret due to concerns for her safety and that she had spent her childhood in a boarding school overseas. The tabloids ate it up… the poor little rich girl growing up apart from her family. But something didn’t ring true to me, and I looked further. Turns out the boarding school where she reportedly grew up didn’t exist.

“When I found that out,” she continued, “I assumed she was just a product of one of Tyler’s affairs. After all, there were rumors Tyler had them back in the day. You know the story, adult child shows up out of nowhere, claims to be the offspring of a very wealthy man… But then I did a little more research, and I found that before she showed up she didn’t exist. Anywhere. And I wouldn’t think Pete Tyler would want that information made public, would you? Not when he worked so hard to cover it up. Obviously not hard enough, though.”

Behind the glass, Pete and Rose exchanged worried glances. Next to her, Ianto’s jaw tightened.

“What do you want?” the Doctor asked, a hard edge creeping into his voice.

“Who says I want anything?” Hallett said lightly. “We’re just sitting here talking.”

He glowered at her across the table. “Not about Rose. You don’t get to talk about Rose.”

Meeting his eyes, she slowly raised one eyebrow, considering. Finally, she sat back in her chair casually, as if they were meeting socially rather than during an interrogation. “Alright. Then let’s talk about you,” she responded evenly. “You don’t exist either. There are absolutely no records on you at all before a week ago… Except,” she said, “one brief classified file on the rebel group the Preachers mentions an alien from a parallel universe called the Doctor who with Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds, Angela Price and Ricky Smith helped defeat Lumic seven years ago. Was that you?”

“This isn’t about me,” he said coldly. “This is about you. Rather, this is about you and Richard Bradford’s alternative energy project.”

“You think you’re so smart,” she said derisively. “Bradford’s project was never about alternative energy.” 

“Why did he recruit you for the project? Was it because of your telepathy rating?”

“He didn’t recruit me; I recruited him,” she answered scornfully. “I didn’t want my name as the primary on this project in case something went wrong, but it was my project. I was in charge.”

“Your project?” the Doctor said incredulously. Well, that put a different spin on things. “So what exactly was the project? Were you looking for aliens to invade the planet? Or did you just get lucky that way?”

Lisa rolled her eyes at his comments. “I had been assigned to a stint in the archives. While we were classifying items for storage, I found part of a communication device that still seemed to have a trace of energy in it. I contacted Bradford and we put together a proposal to study it. He initially thought it was a new source of energy.” 

“But it turned out to not be an energy source at all.”

“I knew it wasn’t all along,” she bragged, “but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was too excited about possibly solving the world’s energy crisis.”

Behind the glass, out of the corner of her eye Rose could see Ianto shaking his head in disbelief.

“So who drew up the proposal?” the Doctor asked Lisa in the interrogation room.

“Oh, I did. Bradford rubber stamped it without really examining it, like always,” she said contemptuously, “and we were in business.”

“So you are the one who listed the requirement that staff have a high telepathy rating.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “I knew instantly what we were dealing with.”

“So, Lisa,” the Doctor continued, “why don’t we just cut to the chase. What happened to Richard Bradford? Did you kill him?”

“Of course not.” Hallett seemed surprised by the question. “Why would I want him dead? He may have been an idiot, but we both believed that our project could bring about a new era of peace and prosperity to the world. He thought it would be by bringing a new form of energy to the planet, and I thought it would be by bringing humanity a greater sense of order and purpose. And we weren’t the first to want to improve human beings through technology and science. Even John Lumic did.” 

Back in the other room, Ianto kept shaking his head. “This is wrong, this is wrong,” he muttered under his breath.

“What’s wrong, Ianto?” Rose asked quietly, her eyes still on the scene in the other room.

“Lisa is wrong,” he said. He corrected himself. “No, that’s not what I mean. Lisa is acting wrong. That’s not Lisa.”

Pete and Rose stared at him in surprise.

“What do you mean it’s not Lisa?” Rose asked sharply.

Ianto gestured at the window in front of him. “I mean, that is Lisa, but somehow it’s not her,” he said, shaking his head again. “I can’t explain it.”

Turning back to the window, Pete, Rose and Ianto listened as the Doctor continued to question her in the interrogation room. 

“Bradford worked with Lumic, didn’t he?” the Doctor asked. “We already know your mother, Rhonda Flemming, did.”

“Oh, yes, Bradford worked for Cybus Industries for a time,” she confirmed. “He got out during the initial stages of the Cyberman project. That’s where they met.”

“And that’s how you knew him,” the Doctor stated. “He was dating your mother. Why did he leave Cybus Industries?”

“Bradford was an idealist,” she answered. “He had lofty visions of a utopia created by Cybus, but when he discovered Lumic’s plans for the Cybermen, he knew he had to get out.

“Lumic was right in his goals but wrong in his methods,” Hallett continued. “He wanted to improve humans and bring order to the planet. This planet is too chaotic. We have a hundred countries, billions of people, each with his own agenda, competing for the same limited resources. This world needs order.”

Back in the observation room, Ianto exploded. “That is not Lisa!” He turned and stalked out of the room, Rose and Pete staring after him in shock. After they exchanged confused glances, Rose shrugged her shoulders and they turned back to the two-way mirror.

Back in the interrogation room, the Doctor asked, “With you, I suppose, being the one who does the ordering?” 

“You’re clever, Doctor, but not nearly as clever as you think. Do you really believe I could have done all this on my own?”

“We know you had help. You know we’ve got your mate, Sean, in custody.”

Through the glass, Rose and Pete watched as Ianto burst into the interrogation room. After he crossed over to the Doctor and whispered in his ear, the Doctor pulled away from him and stared at him wide-eyed. Then they both rushed from the room. A security guard entered and stood at attention by the door.

Pete turned to Rose. “What’s going on?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Moments later, the Doctor and Ianto rushed back into the room, the Doctor carrying his alien detector. Pete and Rose watched as he turned it on and held the sensor at Lisa. The machine started flashing and squealing as loudly as it had at the beacon.

“It appears you were right, Ianto,” he said. “This isn’t Lisa. Or should I say, this isn’t just Lisa.”


	33. Chapter Thirty-Two

The Doctor’s alien detector whirred, flashed and squealed as he held it near Lisa Hallett. Turning down the volume, he set it on the table and made a few adjustments to the controls at the top.

“I need you to stand back, Ianto,” he ordered. “And whatever you do, no matter what happens, don’t touch Lisa or the machine until I tell you it’s alright.”

Ianto nodded and stood with his back against the door.

The Doctor held out the sensor toward Lisa and flipped a switch. The machine began making a loud hum, and the Doctor slowly moved it closer to Lisa’s hand, so close that it was almost touching her fingers. Lisa screamed as an arc of blue light erupted from her fingertips, crossing the narrow space and entering the Doctor’s machine. The sound of her voice echoed through the small room. Suddenly, as the machine absorbed the last of the light, Lisa collapsed against the back of her chair in a dead faint. The Doctor nodded to Ianto, and he quickly crossed to her, while the Doctor checked her vital signs. When they were both assured that Lisa was stable, Ianto turned to him. 

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said quietly.

Lisa’s eyelids fluttered open. “Yan, what are you doing here?” she asked Ianto when she saw him. Instead of answering, Ianto bent to hug her.

The Doctor left the room, taking the alien detector with him. He nodded at the guard on his way out. 

Rose met him in the hall. Setting the machine on the floor, he pulled her into his arms. She melted into him.

“Is this it?” she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Is it over?”

“Not quite yet,” he answered, holding her against him and stroking her hair. “But almost.”

They turned as the door to the interrogation room opened. As Ianto exited the room, a security guard from the hall entered, joining the other who was guarding Lisa Hallett.

Pete Tyler entered the hall from the observation room and immediately turned to Ianto.

“How did you know?” Pete asked him.

“Director Tyler,” Ianto began. “Lisa has always hated Lumic. She would never say anything even remotely positive about him. She certainly would never have said he was right about anything. And although she was not a fan of the Preachers, she was always thankful for the role they had in fighting the Cybermen. She knew you and Rose were a part of that, which is why it never made sense to me that she would have hurt her.”

“Well, Ianto,” the Doctor said, “it seems that you were right. That’s one. Four more to account for.”

On a hunch, they went to see Sean Callahan, who was being held in a cell in one of the lower levels of the Torchwood complex. As soon as they entered the tiny room, the Alien Detector reacted, and the Doctor was able to extract one of the aliens from him.

“Well, that’s two,” Rose said.

“Three,” the Doctor corrected. “At least. We don’t know how many were in that little netbook of Lisa’s.”

“So what’s next?” Rose asked.

“Not what, who,” he responded. At her questioning look, he elaborated. “Who else was on Bradford’s staff?”

“Michael Fields?”

The Doctor nodded. “I think we need to check on him next.”

Adjacent to the infirmary at Torchwood Four, a number of rooms had been partitioned off in order to form a type of hospital wing. Rarely used for anything except the odd injury incurred by field agents on assignment or scientists investigating alien technology, the rooms weren’t designed for either security or privacy. When the Doctor and Rose arrived there, Pete was there overseeing security personnel who were attempting to set up a secured room for Lisa Hallett.

“Why not just stick her back in a cell?” Rose asked.

“Because the human brain is an extremely delicate organ,” the Doctor answered, “and she’ll need to be monitored closely for any adverse effects of playing host to one of the Kern. At this point, we really have no idea how long she’s been under their influence. Sean Callahan will need to be moved up here too.”

Pete crossed over to them.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “Lisa Hallett was under the influence of one of the aliens?”

The Doctor nodded. “And Sean Callahan as well.” 

“But you’ve got it out of her? Out of both of them?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, popping the ‘p’. “And now we need to check on Michael Fields.” He looked around the room. “Where is he?”

“Next room over,” Pete answered. “And he’s finally conscious. We’ve got him under guard, just in case.”

The Doctor and Rose walked to the next room, Pete trailing close behind. When they got to the door, the Doctor made sure his Alien Detector was ready, holding the machine in front of him. The guard at the door opened it for him and he entered.

The machine was silent. The Doctor glanced down at it in surprise. 

A pudgy, balding man in his mid-thirties, Michael Fields lay in a hospital bed propped up with pillows watching a telly someone had evidently brought into the room. It was currently blaring some sort of daytime talk show.

“Director Tyler,” Fields said in surprise. He quickly used the remote to mute the volume as the Doctor, Rose, and Pete entered. He made an effort to get out of bed, and Pete motioned for him to stay put.

The Doctor walked slowly toward the bed, the main part of his machine in one hand, the microphone sensor in the other. As he crossed the room, he waved the sensor in the general direction of Michael Fields. When he was only a foot away from the bed and the machine was still silent, he stopped, still puzzled. “Huh,” he said.

Michael Fields glanced at each of them questioningly. To his surprise, the Doctor sat down on the foot of his bed and stared at the machine in his hands.

“Dr. Fields, this is Doctor John Smith,” Pete said, “and he’s been investigating the disappearance of Dr. Bradford. And of course you know my daughter, Rose.”

“Oh, yes, everyone knows Rose.” Michael Fields smiled at her. “I understand I have you to thank for my rescue.”

“No problem,” she said distractedly. She was watching the Doctor curiously as he examined his alien detector.

The Doctor continued to sit on the foot of the hospital bed, turning his machine over and over in his hands. He checked the connections and the switches, trying to make sure everything was turned on and working. He waved the sensor at Fields a couple more times, whacking the rest of the machine with the heel of his hand in between. “Huh,” he said again.

“What is that thing?” Fields stared at the Doctor quizzically as he continued to fiddle with the machine in his hands.

“It’s his Alien Detector,” Rose answered dryly, “and evidently he’s surprised that you aren’t possessed by an alien.”

“Oh,” Fields responded, and to Rose’s surprise he didn’t sound surprised. “Not me. I didn’t want anything to do with it. Particularly after what happened to Bradford.”

The Doctor looked up at him sharply and they all stared at the man in the bed openmouthed.

The Doctor recovered first. “What did happen to Bradford?” he asked.

“Lisa Hallett had found some sort of alien living in a bit of equipment that had come up through the Cardiff rift,” Fields answered. “She needed a way to research it without drawing any suspicions, so she and Bradford put together a proposal for an alternative energy project that they could submit to the research committee to cover up what they were really researching. I thought I was being recruited because of my scientific credentials, since my background is in solar panel technology. I found out later that the primary reason I was included was for my telepathy. My mother’s family has lived near the Cardiff rift for generations and we all have a certain amount of telepathic ability.”

“What about Bradford?” Pete prompted him again.

“Dr. Bradford told everyone he was telepathic,” Michael said, turning to him. “Funny thing is, I think he really believed it, too. But he was absolutely mind blind. Couldn’t even pass the basic telepathic shield training at Torchwood. Lisa wanted Sean Callahan and myself to form some sort of mental bond or link with the aliens, but she insisted that Bradford stay away. He wouldn’t listen to her. We were all working late on Wednesday night when she got a call on her mobile and all of a sudden needed to go out. While she was gone, Bradford decided to try and contact the aliens on his own. By that time, she had managed to transfer some of them to a little notebook computer she had bought, and when she went out that night she had left it behind in the lab. Bradford plugged the computer into the wall, turned it on and it started sparking and glowing blue. He got too close to it and somehow the light surrounded him and he vanished. I was just pulling out my mobile to call security and that’s when Lisa got back. She and I fought about it. She managed to spray me with some sort of knock out drug and the next thing I knew I was tied up in a deserted house in London. She was going to blame me for Bradford’s disappearance and Ret-Con me so I couldn’t contradict her, but then I guess there were more disappearances and she decided to hold off releasing me for a bit. She couldn’t blame me for the disappearances unless I was missing.”

“Hang on,” said Rose. “Someone wrote a memo recommending the project be discontinued. If Bradford didn’t write it, then who did?”

“I did,” Michael said. “Just as soon as Lisa started talking about linking with the aliens.”

“Why didn’t you send it?” asked Pete. “Or why didn’t you just come and see me?”

“I tried to see you, but you and Rose were busy with the dimension cannon project,” he said. “So I started a memo, but it wasn’t finished yet, and then the next day was the day that Bradford disappeared and I didn’t get a chance to finish it.”

For the next hour, the Doctor questioned Michael Fields on the construction of the energy collectors and the beacon. Interested at first, Rose eventually became bored with the highly technical discussion. As soon as they had begun talking about the energy absorption coefficient of the photovoltaic material as it was influenced by the superstrate layer she began to tune out. Materials science wasn’t really her field, so she pulled up a chair in front of the telly and grabbed the remote control. Flipping through the channels, she discovered that daytime television was just as boring in Pete’s world as it had been when she had been growing up on the Powell Estate. Pete had been called away to deal with problems regarding the setup of the secured area for Lisa and Sean. She considered following him, but it had been a long couple of days and she was feeling too lethargic to move from her chair, so she just sat and waited for the Doctor, not particularly paying attention to what was on the screen in front of her. 

Finally, when the Doctor was done talking to Michael Fields, they returned to Bradford’s lab. Rose watched as the Doctor worked on removing the aliens from his alien detector. He had taken his machine and had connected it through power cords to another small electronic device that he had pulled from one of the piles of electronics that Ianto had organized on the counter. 

“So how exactly is this supposed to work?” Rose asked.

“I’m transferring the Kern from the Alien Detector here,” he indicated the USB port on the back of his machine, “through these wires to this box here. This is actually a type of rechargeable battery, similar to a silver-oxide battery but much, much more advanced. I found it in the Archives yesterday with Pete. Now the Kern are essentially just a form of energy, and when I transfer them here,” he flipped a switch and the machine started to hum, “they will enter the battery and remain fairly stable until I can figure out how to get them where they need to go.” 

“If you could just stick them in a battery, why were they dying in the netbook?” she asked. “It has a battery.”

“Different kind of battery, Rose. This one is more compatible to their type of energy and can also retain a charge much, much longer. But even in this, they can’t last forever.”

The machine stopped humming and the Doctor turned off the switch. “There we are. Done. Now we give this to Pete and see if he can get them off-planet.” He quickly disconnected the battery from the USB port.

“And if he can’t?” Rose asked.

“Well, then, they may have a bit of a wait until we can get the TARDIS up and running,” the Doctor said with a grin. He stood and pulled Rose to her feet.

“C’mon, Rose,” he said, pulling her from the room. “We’ll go find Pete and then one more stop to go.”

 

To Rose’s surprise, the last stop was back at the beacon.

The neighborhood was still empty of people. This time, when they drove onto the block, she had noticed a sign proclaiming the area a reclamation district and proudly announcing the coming of a new housing complex.

“What are we doing here?” she asked as they crossed the vacant lot again.

“In talking to Michael Fields, I suddenly realized that dismantling the beacon wouldn’t be good enough. The beacon is acting like a giant telepathic amplifier. If there is even one of those creatures left in there, it would still be enough to call the rest of them here. And we can’t have that.”

“So what are we doing if we aren’t dismantling it?” she asked.

He gave her an enigmatic smile.

“Want a piece of bubble gum?” he asked, seemingly apropos of nothing. He pulled at least a half dozen pieces out of his pocket and offered some to her. When she shook her head, he unwrapped them all and shoved them into his mouth, sticking the wrappers back in his pocket. As they walked, he blew a number of impressive bubbles with the gum. After he blew a particularly large one, Rose poked it with her fingernail, grinning at him cheekily. He quickly pulled the gum back in his mouth with his tongue, narrowly avoiding it getting stuck all over his face, and she laughed.

They arrived at the gate that led to the energy collectors and the beacon. It was still unlocked, and the Doctor opened it and went in.

“Now Rose,” he said, having shoved the wad of gum in his cheek and knelt down next to the tower, “I’m gonna need you to stand back. Way, way back. Way, way, way back.” He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a small shiny object. It looked a bit like a silver golf ball.

Rose was so impressed by his ability to speak clearly with so much gum in his mouth that it took a moment for her to register what he held in his hand. When she did, she was dumbfounded.

“Wait a minute,” she said in shock. “That’s a mini Cyberbomb. Where on Earth did you get that?”

“Cardiff,” he answered. Pulling the wad of gum from his mouth, he stuck it to the metal utility box at the base of the beacon tower. He then stuck the bomb to the gum and tied it to the box with some string from his pocket. “Spotted it when we were sorting through all that stuff that Gwen had at Torchwood Three. Thought it might come in handy sometime. Didn’t realize it would come in handy quite so soon, though.” He looked up at her. “I did say to stand back,” he said pointedly.

Knowing how powerful even a mini Cyberbomb was, Rose backed up. And backed up. And backed up.

“Now I’m gonna put this on a thirty second delay,” the Doctor said. He bent down and touched the controls, priming the tiny bomb.

“Run!” he shouted. As he ran past her, he grabbed her hand and dragged her along with him past the deserted buildings and across the field.

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine…” he shouted as they ran.

The explosion rocked the surrounding area and threw them to the ground. The nearby, thankfully vacant, buildings collapsed in the blast, throwing debris high into the air. As tiny pieces rained down around them, they covered their heads with their arms. 

When the ground stopped shaking and the worst of the dust had settled, they raised their heads and looked at each other.

“Probably should have put that on a forty-five second delay,” he said thoughtfully.

“Ya think?” she asked, unable to hide the laughter that began to bubble up from inside her.

He grinned, his white teeth possibly the only clean thing about him. She began to laugh harder and he joined her as the utter familiarity of the situation struck the both of them. Eventually they were both laughing hysterically.

As their laughter slowed, Rose took a good look at the Doctor. His hair stuck out at all angles, he was badly in need of a shave, and he was so covered in cement dust, dirt, and ash that both his hair and his suit looked grey. Secretly, she thought he was gorgeous.

“Do I look as bad as you do?” she asked, still laughing somewhat.

The Doctor looked at her appraisingly. Her hair was coated in a layer of fine ash, and she had dirt smeared all over her face. He grinned.

“You look absolutely beautiful,” he said sincerely.

“I bet you say that to all the girls you blow up beacons with,” she said, grinning with her tongue just touching her teeth.

“Why Rose Tyler, what do you take me for?” he said in mock-offense. “I only say it to the pretty ones.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed.

He stood up, shaking his head to remove the loose dust from his hair. Brushing cement dust off his jacket with his hands, he released a cloud of it into the air. He pulled her up to stand next to him. She tried to brush some of the dust out of her hair with her fingertips.

The Doctor took her arm as they crossed the field, heading toward Pete’s not-so beautiful Aston Martin. It was now covered in a thick layer of ash and cement dust. Both the Doctor and Rose winced as they noticed the top had a long tear and a chunk of cement had landed on the boot, caving it in.

“Oops.” He grimaced. “Well, can’t be helped now,” he said with a sigh. “Cinderella, your chariot awaits. Got to get you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”

She raised her eyebrow at him. “The chariot turns into a pumpkin, not Cinderella, and it’s not a chariot anyway, it’s a carriage.” 

“Really?” he asked. “I’ll need to rewatch that one. Do they have Disney in this universe?”

“Oh, yes,” she told him, holding onto his arm tightly, only partially to prevent herself from tripping over debris. “But the movies aren’t all the same. For instance, in Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket isn’t a cricket, he’s a snail, so they’re always late wherever they go. There’s only six dwarves with Snow White, instead of seven. I think they’re missing Sleepy, can’t remember for sure. Oh, and they never made the Lion King here.”

“What?” he said in outraged disbelief. “A cinematic classic like that? The Lion King is a masterpiece, essentially a retelling of Hamlet for a younger, more animation friendly audience.”

“Don’t have Shakespeare, either,” she said, biting her lip in order to suppress the twitch to her mouth.

“What?!” he exclaimed. He looked at her and saw her efforts not to grin. “You’re just winding me up. Oh, you cheeky… Did I tell you I met Shakespeare, Rose?” he asked as they continued to pick their way over the building debris scattered all over the field. “Went with Martha. Brilliant man. I always wanted to take you to meet him. Maybe we will if we get the TARDIS working. On second thought,” he said, remembering the trip, “Maybe we won’t. I’m not sure I want him to meet you. He’d definitely fancy you. He fancied Martha. Fancied me, too, actually…”


	34. Chapter Thirty-Three

As soon as they arrived back at the mansion, they headed directly up to their rooms, taking turns in the en suite to shower and change. They met back downstairs in the living room, the Doctor in a clean t-shirt and trousers, Rose in a tee and sweat pants. As soon as Rose sat down next to him on the sofa, the Doctor put his arm around her. She snuggled into his side and promptly fell asleep.

Jackie entered the room, followed by Pete and Tony.

“So, did you tell her yet?” Jackie demanded as soon as she saw him.

“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger to his lips. He continued at a whisper. “Rose is exhausted. And no, I haven’t told her yet.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “I was serious about telling her, Doctor. If you don’t, I will,” she said in a whisper that was barely less than her usual volume. And her usual volume used to be able to carry her voice from one end of the Powell Estate to the other.

“I will, I will,” he promised, still at a whisper. “But please, Jackie, Rose hasn’t slept in a while. She really needs her sleep.”

“That one?” Jackie said incredulously. “Once she’s finally asleep, she can sleep through a hurricane.”

“Jacks, why don’t you take Tony to the kitchen and get him some supper,” Pete said quietly. “I really need to talk to the Doctor.”

“Well, all right,” Jackie said reluctantly. “Go on, Tony. I’ll get you something to eat.”

Tony ran out of the room, but before Jackie left she turned back to the Doctor. “I’m taking Tony and a few of his little friends to the zoo tomorrow. I’ll be gone most of the day. And if I get back and you haven’t told her, I will,” she said pointedly. And with that, she left the room.

Pete and the Doctor exchanged glances, both grimacing. They both knew her well enough to know she would make good on her threat.

“I understand there was a bit of an explosion near the substation,” Pete said to him, changing the subject. “You two wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, would you?”

“Weell…” he responded.

“I thought so,” Pete answered. He raised an eyebrow. “Just as soon as I saw the condition of my car.”

The Doctor winced. “Sorry about that, Pete.”

Pete had a pained expression on his face. “Next time, please take a Torchwood vehicle. They are built to handle the odd mishap. Just to let you know, the explosion is being reported as being caused by a gas main break. Next time a little warning, please,” he said. “And why don’t you tell me what really happened.”

The Doctor quickly summarized what he knew about the Kern and his decision to blow up the beacon. As he and Pete spoke, they kept their voices as low as possible.

“So these aliens, the Kern you said, ended up in the power lines and were attempting to find hosts?” Pete asked.

“Yes,” the Doctor answered. “The Kern are what is known as a joined species. They normally don’t live independently. On their home planet they live symbiotically with another race called the Kaln, although the Kern have been known to join with other species. The Kaln are corporeal with a roughly humanoid shape. Anyway, before their planet was destroyed, the Kaln sent out a number of probes filled with Kern looking for a new planet.”

“And some of them ended up here?”

The Doctor nodded. “One of the probes broke up and part of it entered a rift in space.”

“And ended up in Cardiff,” Pete finished. “If they were looking for hosts, why all the disappearing people?” 

“When the Kern are looking for a new host,” the Doctor told him, “they try to make contact with it and they attempt to bond with it. If the bonding does not occur, they assume that the creature is non-sentient and absorb it. The Kern are a bit prejudiced. They don’t recognize non-telepaths as sentient.”

“How did they end up in the power lines?” Pete asked.

“Presumably they were in some piece of equipment that was then plugged in somewhere,” the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “It could have even happened when they brought the beacon online. It was hooked up to the power grid. The original power cells that held the Kern had been installed in it.”

“So what happened to you?” Pete asked. “They didn’t bond with you, but they didn’t absorb you either.”

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” the Doctor answered. “Every universe has a slightly different energy signature. Since I had only been in this universe less than a week, my personal energy signature didn’t match the one in this universe. I thought that’s why I wasn’t absorbed. Turns out, since my energy signature didn’t match that of the Kern, it also prevented me from forming a telepathic link with them in the substation. Had I been able to do that, this might all have been able to be cleared up days ago.”

“And Lisa Hallett?”

“She was working in the archives when she discovered the piece of electronics that held the Kern. One of them saw her as a potential host, and entered her mind. It then used her to attempt to set up the beacon so they could call the rest of them to themselves. And they influenced her to build the energy collectors as sort of a landing pad for the rest of them when they showed up.”

“So she was possessed by them and not responsible for her actions?” Pete asked.

“Possibly, but I don’t think so,” said the Doctor. “When the Kern join with a person, normally they form a new personality, a true joint persona. That persona typically has greater mental ability; the Kern call it greater knowledge, wisdom and power, although I would argue with that second bit. I personally have never seen any increase in wisdom in regards to a Kern joining.

“Usually, telepathic species can withstand the complexity of linking with another mind without being overwhelmed by it,” the Doctor continued. “Humans can’t do that; your brains aren’t built that way. But despite that, Lisa Hallett seems to have chosen to link with one of the Kern and managed to hold her own somewhat in the joining.

“The Kern were very specific,” he added. “They stated that they had been invited ‘by those who wished to rule.’ Lisa Hallett had been very upset by how the government ran things during the crisis with Lumic, and I believe she saw the Kern as a way of shifting the political balance in her favor. I think she planned on using them. Little did she realize they were planning on using her as well. They intended on taking over every telepathic human on the planet. But since they met Lisa first, they didn’t realize there just aren’t that many telepathic humans. And that’s where the beacon comes in. They were using it to telepathically call to the rest of their species, and we had to stop that. I told them we’d send them to a planet where they could find a compatible host, and most of them left the beacon, but I couldn’t be sure they all did. We needed to destroy the beacon just in case there were any of them left in it.” 

“So did you manage to get all of them?” Pete asked.

“I certainly hope so,” the Doctor said. “There were five unaccounted for. One was in Lisa, one was in Sean, and one was probably in the wiring at Torchwood. That first night you took me there, the flickering lights and that crackling sound? That was one of the Kern. That one probably died quickly after that, since you haven’t had any more reports of people missing there. And there was at least one in the little netbook Lisa had with her when Rose was kidnapped. Hopefully two, otherwise one is missing.”

“Isn’t there any way to check?” Pete asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “Whatever was in there is dead now. If they were still alive, I could have made telepathic contact with them and checked, but not anymore,” he said soberly.

“Returning to the subject of Lisa Hallett,” Pete said. “She escaped.”

“What?” the Doctor said in shock. “How?”

“We don’t know,” Pete answered. “A female agent took her to the ladies toilet and she somehow overpowered her and escaped. I would have suspected Ianto Jones of helping her, but he was with me at the time. We searched the entire complex for hours and couldn’t find any trace of her.”

“Well, at least we know Sean Callahan didn’t help her this time,” the Doctor said.

“We don’t think he helped her last time, either,” said Pete. “Ianto was tracking her whereabouts, and at the time of Rose’s disappearance, Sean was in a restaurant in Chelsea. A waitress there remembers him very clearly. Seems Sean Callahan was chatting her up. When she was contacted, she wanted us to make sure we gave him the number for her mobile.” He sighed. “I wish I knew how Lisa’s been managing to get out of Torchwood unseen. Is it possible that she could have been doing all this on her own?”

The Doctor frowned. “It seems rather unlikely, but if she had an emergency plan in place before all this fell apart, she probably could have. It seems clear she altered the CCTV at Torchwood the first time. Maybe she did it again. If she’s as good as Ianto says, she could even have altered the CCTV in London. It would have been tricky, but she could have done it.”

“So what I need to do is get a bunch of new computer experts in there and revamp the system.” Pete sighed, shaking his head. “What a mess.”

The Doctor agreed, but that was a problem for the Director of Torchwood, not him. He looked down at the woman still snuggled into his side, fast asleep. “Well, I best get Sleeping Beauty here up to bed,” he said. Putting one arm under her knees and leaving his other wrapped around her shoulders, he easily lifted her up as he stood. As a response to the movement, she snuggled closer to him, turning her face into his chest.

“Looks like you could use some sleep, too,” said Pete.

The Doctor nodded. “I have to admit, I’m knackered. G’night, Pete.”

After tucking Rose into her bed, he returned to his own room, changed into jimjams and got into bed. Once there, though, he could hardly close his eyes. Even though he knew Rose was safe, his thoughts spun out of control. Visions of her injuries, with all the possible ways she could have received them, raced through his mind. After a while, earlier memories joined them. When he had thought she had been killed by the Anne Droid on the Game Station. When the Wire had stolen her face. When her grip had slipped off the lever at Canary Wharf. And one, existing only in his nightmares, of her slipping from the lever but not being caught by Pete and falling into the Void.

After tossing and turning for over an hour, he finally gave up on trying to sleep and got out of bed. After putting on his dressing gown and slippers, he searched the pockets of his blue suit, which definitely needed cleaning again after the explosion of the beacon, and pulled out the spare earpods and other things he had stuck there from Torchwood Three as well as the tiny power cell he had taken from the Torchwood archives. Exiting his room, he carried them down to Pete’s workshop.

Laying everything out on the workbench, and adding some electronic pieces he had seen in Pete’s cupboards, he began work on his new sonic screwdriver.

Hours later, when he was so tired his eyes could no longer focus well enough to work, he headed back upstairs. He slowly walked toward his room, but at the last second he stopped and put his hand on a different doorknob, inwardly debating with himself. Finally he turned the knob and quietly entered Rose’s room. He stood by the door, just watching her sleep, reassuring himself that she was safe. After a moment, totally exhausted, he sank into a chair by the door.

 

In the midst of a nightmare, Rose forced herself awake. She opened her eyes. Moonlight poured through the open window. Slowly she became aware of another presence in the room. She was surprised to see the Doctor dozing in a chair opposite her. She sat up, facing him.

“Doctor,” she quietly called, yawning and stretching. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He sat up abruptly. “What?”

“What’s wrong?” she repeated.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head and getting up. “I’m sorry, must have fallen asleep.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I… I just needed to see that you were okay. I sat down for a second and...” He shrugged apologetically and looked sheepish. “I should let you get some sleep.”

“No,” she said quickly. “Stay and talk to me for a bit.”

Rose’s tone was light, but there was just a hint of anxiety to her voice that concerned him, so the Doctor turned and crossed to her, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed. 

“Rose, I asked you before and you never really answered me,” he said gently. “What did she do to you?”

Rose shook her head. “It wasn’t too bad,” she tried to reassure him. “Really. I think I’ve had worse blind dates, all those times Mum tried to fix me up with people.” Her attempt at humor fell flat, and he looked steadily at her, eyebrows raised. Sighing, she continued. “Alright, I was unconscious a lot of the time, and then she questioned me, and then I was locked up for a while.”

“This,” he said, gently touching a bruise on her face, “did not happen from talking.”

She could see that he wasn’t going to give up, and she suddenly realized what he feared happened to her was probably worse than what had actually happened. 

“Okay,” she said. “A couple of the scrapes and bruises were probably from being driven around in the boot of her car. She slapped me once.” Rose gingerly touched a sore spot on her cheek. “But most of the rest of these were from when we fought when I escaped. I did a fair number of them to myself. I hurt my wrist,” she said, looking at it, “when I punched her, and I hurt my ankle from landing on it badly.”

Rose paused as she looked up at him. She lifted up her left hand to caress his cheek, and he leaned into it.

“The scariest part was she was gonna Ret-Con me,” she said softly. “She wanted to give me enough Ret-Con to wipe out my memories for more than a week,” she told him. “I would have forgotten you. Of all the weeks I could lose, I couldn’t lose this week.”

He sighed. He was both incredibly touched and still somewhat saddened. “Oh, Rose,” he said, “you wouldn’t have forgotten me. Not really. I promise you. Even if you had lost this entire week, you wouldn’t have forgotten _me_.” 

He lifted one hand and lightly caressed her cheek. Bending his head down to hers, he gently kissed her, their lips barely touching. “Promise me something. Promise me that we are going to talk in the morning. No matter what happens, we talk in the morning.” She nodded and he stood up. “Now I should go and let you get some sleep.”

He turned toward the door, but she caught his arm before he could move off.

“Please don’t leave,” she asked hesitantly. “Stay here, with me. Please.” 

He froze. His heart pounded and he realized he had stopped breathing. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to take a deep breath and slowly let it out. This was a bad idea. This was a really bad idea. What if she wanted to…. And they couldn’t, for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which was that they really needed to talk about who he was. 

Not to mention the fact that they were in the Tyler mansion. And Pete and Jackie were basically just down the hall.

This was a really, really bad idea.

Opening his eyes, he turned back to her.

And sat down.

She leaned forward to kiss him. He closed his eyes and for a moment he lost himself in the feel of her lips on his. They were so soft, so _intoxicatingly_ soft. As they kissed, he felt her loosen his dressing gown and he broke away to quickly shrug out of it, taking a moment to lay it at the foot of the bed before turning back to her. Cupping her face in his hands, he leaned forward and gently, tenderly, lovingly kissed her. When she wrapped her arms around him, he moved one of his hands to her side, to pull her closer to him.

And she gasped. And winced. 

He jerked away from her. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

“Just a bit sore,” she said apologetically. “When we were fighting, Lisa kicked me a couple of times.”

He reached over and turned on the lamp on her bedside table. They both blinked at the sudden glare. “Let me see,” he said.

She lifted up her top part way. She had large bruises along her right side along the bottom of her ribcage and down to her hip.

“Rose, why didn’t you say something?” he asked, grimacing.

“Cos I’ve had cracked ribs before and it didn’t feel like this. I know nothing’s broken,” she said, lowering her top. When he raised his eyebrows at her, she continued. “And there was nothing either you or Owen could do about this. And I’m just a little sore,” she insisted. 

He frowned at her. “I should leave,” he said. “You need your rest.”

The Doctor saw a look of both disappointment and resignation briefly cross her face.

“Are you gonna sleep?” she asked after a pause. 

“Part Time Lord,” he answered. “Don’t need much sleep.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Really?” she asked skeptically. “When was the last time you slept? Actually slept, not just dozed in that chair.”

“Cardiff,” he admitted after a long pause.

“And I know you didn’t get much sleep that night. Neither of us did.” 

He shrugged.

“Listen,” she said, “if you leave, I know you’re not going to sleep, and if I know you’re not sleeping, I won’t be able to sleep either. Besides, it’s not as if it’ll be the first time we shared a bed.” She shifted over to make room for him and lay down. She looked at him pointedly and, with a jerk of her head, gestured for him to get in bed. Bowing to the inevitable, he turned off the light, toed off his slippers and lay down next to her.

She rolled over onto her left side, facing away from him. He rolled next to her, spooning her, and, mindful of her injuries, gently put his arm around her. She leaned back into him and sighed.

“Good night, Doctor,” she said quietly. She turned her head and kissed him where she could reach, which happened to be his shoulder.

“Good night, Rose.” He placed a gentle kiss in her hair and very carefully tightened his grip around her.

And, somehow, lying there together in the dark with her tucked safely under his arm released a tension in him that he had been living with so long, since before Canary Wharf, since the beast in the pit at Krop Tor had made predictions of her death, that he hadn’t even noticed it anymore. She was here. She was safe. He was with her. She was in his arms. And he truly, finally relaxed. And slept.


	35. Chapter Thirty-Four

Late the next morning he awoke, alone, in a room he did not immediately recognize. It seemed to be decorated in primarily pinks and creams. A delicate pattern of roses graced the walls in its wallpaper, and heavy curtains in a dusty pink hung at the windows. The bed itself was covered in luxurious cotton sheets in pinks and creams, with subtle accents in green and gold. The floral motif could easily have been overdone; instead, the patterns worked so well together the room exuded an atmosphere of refined elegance.

From his position on the bed, he could see out the window. The view was essentially the same as the one from his own room. He was in Rose’s room, in her bed. Suddenly remembering the events of the previous night, he was perversely both profoundly relieved and incredibly disappointed at the way the evening had ended. Despite him waking up here, they hadn’t… And he was certain that if he hadn’t been so completely knackered, and if she hadn’t been injured, things would have ended quite differently.

And that scared the hell out of him. For more reasons than he cared to admit, even to himself.

But primarily because he was certain she still didn’t completely understand who he was. Somehow she had come to accept him and care about him, this him, and he was thankful and relieved, but in accepting only this part of him, she wasn’t accepting all of who he was. And if this, _this_ ever happened, it should only happen if she really knew who he was. And after last night, that brought an urgency to discussing the meta-crisis that hadn’t been there before.

But then he considered just not telling her. A part of him, and not a small part, was tempted to do just that. After all, she seemed to be accepting him, this him, at face value and he wasn’t sure it was worth it to risk that. And it’s not as if he’d ever again be the man he once was.

And it’s not as if their previous discussions of the beach, the meta-crisis and his identity had gone all that well either.

But then he thought of Jackie. Jackie knew. And Jackie had threatened to tell Rose if he didn’t. And he couldn’t imagine how Rose would react to finding out about him from her mother. Well, actually, he could imagine, and it wasn’t good.

And, truth be told, he needed for Rose to accept him, accept all of him, who he was currently as well as who he had been. 

As much as his relationship with Rose was developing, improving, from the disastrous scene on the beach in Norway, the truth was it wasn’t enough for him. He needed her to accept him for who he was, not just who she thought he was, and he wasn’t exactly sure how to get to that point. He still didn’t know how to tell her, to make her understand, or even broach the subject. 

Because every time he had brought it up, they had gotten off track. Every single time. He needed to do something to force the conversation, force the issue, if they were really going to make progress. But what?

After showering, he returned to his own room, still debating with himself. Crossing to the wardrobe, he opened the door and looked in. The previous evening he had noticed his new suits had been delivered, the ones he and Rose had ordered on that trip to Ervings. He fingered the lapel of one for a moment, and inwardly came to a decision. He pulled it from the wardrobe and quickly dressed.

 

Rose was in the kitchen making breakfast. She wasn’t a particularly good cook, but almost anyone could make scrambled eggs and toast. Bread into toaster, eggs out of the fridge. A bit of butter into the pan on the stove. Cracking eggs into a bowl, she whisked salt, pepper and a bit of milk into them and poured the whole mess into the pan.

Wandering around the kitchen, she had a realization. She was happier than she had been in years. She had certainly laughed more in the last week than she had since she had been trapped here in this universe. She couldn’t stop herself from grinning. And it was all because of that man she had left sleeping in her bed upstairs. Waking up to the Doctor in bed with her, not for the first but for the third time, had been utterly fantastic. And this time had been deliberate, not because of an accident or because she was comforting him after a panic attack. Yeah, the night hadn’t quite ended the way she thought it might, but they had plenty of time for all of that. Maybe it was best to take things slow anyway. After all, she _was_ just getting to know him.

And he must have been totally exhausted, she thought. When she had woken up, he was still sound asleep, spread eagled, taking over almost the whole bed. One of his arms had been thrown across her back, one leg lying across her calf, pinning her in somewhat. Somehow she had managed to get up and shower without waking him. She quickly dressed in the bathroom in her usual summer day’s off outfit of jeans and a t-shirt, leaving her hair down and lightly applying makeup. When she had left the bedroom to come downstairs, he was still out like a light, gently snoring.

When she had arrived in the kitchen, she had noticed that her mum and Tony weren’t around. She had known her stepfather would be at work; he had to stop by Vitex a couple of mornings a week before heading out to Torchwood, but she hadn’t known that her mum and Tony would be gone. Rose had read the note Jackie had left saying she and Tony would be gone most of the day with relief. She knew the Doctor wanted to talk to her, and this would give them a chance to talk privately. She wasn’t sure what he wanted to talk about, probably the incident at the beach, but whatever it was, she thought she was finally ready to discuss it with him.

As the eggs cooked, she pulled out dishes and cutlery and set the kitchen table for two. Plates. Napkins. Marmalade. Sugar. Milk. Humming to herself, she poured two glasses of orange juice and placed a banana on the edge of the Doctor’s plate.

When the eggs were done, she took the pan off the burner, covered it so it would stay warm, and started boiling water to make a fresh pot of tea. She went to the cabinet and grabbed a mug for the Doctor. At the sound of the kitchen door swinging open she turned, a wide smile on her face.

She gasped, the mug slipping from her hand to crash on the floor.

There he was. Brown pinstriped suit, dark blue Oxford shirt, brown and blue swirly tie. 

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She just stood there, frozen, staring at him wide-eyed, heart pounding, hands covering her mouth. 

“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

With a start, she realized she recognized that voice. And the tie. The tie that they had bought at Erving’s. It wasn’t _him_. It was this him, the part human Doctor.

The teakettle began whistling, and she rushed to the stove and turned it off.

The Doctor bent down and started to pick up the broken pieces of the mug Rose had dropped. She bent down to help him and realized her hands were shaking.

When he noticed her hands, he took them in his own.

“I am so, so sorry, Rose,” he apologized again. 

She nodded and went to get a broom and dustpan. After he had picked up the large pieces of broken crockery, she swept up the remaining shards and brushed them into the bin.

He took the broom and dustpan away from her and put them away. When he came back, he pulled her into a hug. He could feel her body still shaking slightly.

He pulled away from her slightly, cupping her face with his hand.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay.”

They stared into each other’s eyes. Slowly, slowly he bent to kiss her.

And she backed away. 

Seeing him like this, looking so much like the one who had left her, made her doubt herself and her feelings all over again. She wasn’t sure she could separate the two of them in her mind. And until she could…

“No, no,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He sighed and let go of her. Her reaction was like a knife wound to the gut, but he quickly tamped down the feeling. “Rose, you are sending me mixed signals.”

“Me? Me? I’m sending mixed signals?” she laughed, and her laughter held just a touch of hysteria. She gestured at him. “You are one giant walking mixed signal. You look like the Doctor, you sound like him, you act like him, you even smell like him, but you’re not _him_!”

Silently at war with himself, he debated what to say. He had so wanted her to figure it out, understand it on her own. He specifically wore this particular suit so she would make the connection in her mind. 

“Rose, I _am_ the Doctor.”

“Yes, I know you are, but you’re not _him_ , not really.” What had been just a hint of hysteria was growing in her voice.

“Yes, I am,” he insisted. “Honestly, Rose, honestly, it’s me. I _am_ the Doctor. I am the same person who took your hand in Henrik’s and told you to run, the same person who you saved on the Game Station, the same person who lost you at Canary Wharf. I am the Doctor.”

“No, you’re not. It’s impossible. _He_ left.” She was almost begging him to agree with her.

He slammed his fist onto the table, rattling the dishes and sloshing a bit of orange juice out of their cups. “Dammit, Rose, yes, I am! I am as much the Doctor as he is!”

Staring at him openmouthed, Rose was shocked into silence. 

This was so incredibly frustrating. How could he make her understand? He began to pace the room, running his hands through his hair.

The Doctor stopped suddenly and stood motionless, taking deep breaths and willing his temper to come under his control. When he was calmer, he continued.

“Rose, please, please listen,” he begged. “Before I regenerated after the Game Station, I told you that Time Lords have a little trick, a way to cheat death. But Time Lords had had more little tricks than just regeneration. They had been able to transfer their consciousnesses to other locations. It’s one of the reasons regeneration works. The body changes completely, but the inner self transfers to the new body.”

“Back before the War, on Gallifrey, there was something called the Matrix. It was a one of the sources of the Time Lords’ power and also a repository of all Time Lord knowledge. You know about regeneration. It’s a Time Lord’s way of cheating death. Time Lords were virtually immortal. Regenerating allowed them to live thousands of years, but even a Time Lord’s body could eventually die. After a Time Lord had lived his last life and could no longer regenerate, it still wasn’t the end. At the end of his life, his memories, his essence, his very soul would be put into the Matrix so it would not be lost. In a sense, he would still live on, within the Matrix. Time Lord science. Time Lord _consciousness_. And in the brain, the physical center of a Time Lord’s consciousness, his soul, if you will, is the animamedia.”

“Back then, it was possible for a Time Lord to separate his consciousness from his body and enter the Matrix even while he was still alive. For Time Lords, it was even possible to place a portion of their consciousnesses into other things as well,” he said, thinking about the fob watch and the Family of Blood. Shaking that thought off, he continued. “Anyway, the animamedia aided in this. It served as a link from your consciousness back to your body.”

“Now when that Dalek shot me and I began to regenerate, I attempted to do something that had never been tried before. You know how powerful regeneration energy is. You’ve seen it twice. But you had just found me again,” he looked at her lovingly, “and I didn’t want to change, so after my body healed I threw off the excess regeneration energy into this hand,” he smiled ruefully, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers, “my handy hand right here. It prevented a full regeneration, but when I did it the energy was so powerful it damaged my animamedia, and I accidentally split my consciousness in two. You saw it, on the screen in Cardiff. Remember? You saw that it had been damaged. That exact type of damage can only happen in a split of consciousness. I threw off a portion of my consciousness, part of my very self, along with the energy, into this hand. I had no idea that that could happen, that it was even a possibility. It’s never happened before. To anyone. Ever. And then of course Donna touched the hand receptacle and her life force and her DNA triggered this body’s formation. Instantaneous biological meta-crisis. Biological meta-crisis _regeneration_ , Rose. _Regeneration_. The meta-crisis was a sort of sideways regeneration. First in the history of the universe.”

The Doctor looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to understand. “Rose, I’m not a copy. This body may be, but _I’m_ not. I’m _him_. I’m not _like_ him. I’m _literally_ him. I’m the Doctor. I _am_ the Doctor. I’m the same man, Rose Tyler. I’m the same person you traveled with. We _both_ are. I’m him. I’m … me. Different body, a tiny bit of Donna’s DNA, but I’m me. That’s what we both tried to tell you on the beach at Darlig Ulv Stranden.”

His voice broke as he pleaded with her. “With all the things that you’ve seen in the universe, in all the universes that you’ve been to, why won’t you believe me?”

As she listened to him, Rose’s eyes grew large and frightened. She stared at him, her hands over her mouth.

She shook her head. “Oh my God,” she whispered, backing up. “Bigger on the inside.” She continued to back up, backing into the kitchen door. She took a deep breath, her whole body shaking. “I, uh, just, I need some time.” She shook her head again. “I, uh, I’ve got to go.” She turned and fled the room.

In his shock at her reaction, he hesitated for a moment, not knowing what to do. Clenching his teeth, he yanked on his hair in anxiety and frustration, not knowing if he should give her some time or chase after her. By the time it occurred to him that he needed to go after her, it was too late.

“Rose!” he yelled and ran to the door, but she was gone. “Rose!”

 

After searching the house and grounds for Rose, the Doctor had finally checked the garage. Her car was still there, so he knew that she was still close by. Since there was no way of finding her, he returned to the house, checked on the TARDIS coral, and returned to work on his sonic screwdriver.

Two hours later, the Doctor sat at the workbench in Pete’s workshop. Building a sonic wasn’t as much an escape as repairing the TARDIS used to be, but it was something. And after the confrontation with Rose, he’d take whatever distraction he could get.

He had screwed up. He had royally screwed up this time. His gob got him into trouble at least as often as it got him out of it, and his desperate, semi-incoherent explanation to Rose of who he was and his babbling scientific explanation of the meta-crisis seemed to have done more harm than good.

Instead of convincing her of his identity, he had probably convinced her he needed to be sectioned.

Somehow, in an instant, his relationship with Rose had gone all pear-shaped again. The conversation, the fight, with Rose stymied him. Whatever reaction he had been expecting her to have from his rambling revelation, that hadn’t been it. She hadn’t looked happy. She hadn’t looked confused. She hadn’t even looked angry. She had looked shocked and more than a little scared. And he had absolutely no clue what to do about it. He didn’t even know where she was. _This_ was why he didn’t do domestic. He was no bloody good at it.

But he had discovered that what he longed for with Rose was _entirely_ domestic. 

A small noise behind him roused him from his reveries. He whirled around to face the entrance to the workshop. Rose stood in the doorway. 

“Rose,” he said in relief. He wanted to go to her, but something in her expression stopped him. Instead, he stood and leaned against the workbench. He took off his glasses and put them in his pocket.

“It’s bigger on the inside, isn’t it?” she asked without entering the room.

“What?” he asked in confusion.

“The TARDIS. The inside’s bigger than the outside?” This seemed very important to her.

“Yes,” he said, wondering where she was going with this.

“It’s alien,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Time Lord technology.”

“Yes.”

“And the TARDIS, she’s alive,” she said.

“Yes.” 

“And you’re alien.”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Time Lord physiology.”

“Yes. Weell, mostly.”

“Time Lord consciousness.”

“Yes.” 

“The TARDIS, she’s bigger on the inside. Things _can’t_ bigger on the inside, but the TARDIS _is_.” She seemed fixated on the TARDIS.

“Yes.” Part of him had an almost overwhelming urge to explain it to her, to talk about relative dimensions, the mathematics of n space physics, and the Time Vortex, but he forced himself to remain silent. Whatever this was, it wasn’t about the TARDIS.

She had begun to shake, almost imperceptibly, and bite her lip. He fought the urge to rush to her. “And you. It’s impossible. You and he can’t be the same person, but you are.” 

From across the room he stared into her eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Doctor?” she said tentatively.

He smiled at her. “Hello,” he said. He lifted his hand in a little wave.

“Hello,” she responded, her face breaking into a wide grin, and she was in his arms.

After a minute, Rose backed out of his embrace and whacked him in the arm.

“Ow, what’d you do that for,” he protested. His face cracked into the widest grin he had yet to have in this body, because with her hitting him he was now certain she knew who he was.

“That’s for not telling me straight off,” she said, hitting him again. “Why didn’t you tell me in the zeppelin? Or on the beach? Or even in the TARDIS before we got here?”

“Well, I did try,” he said, still grinning. “But I wasn’t sure at that point that you didn’t know. Wasn’t until that morning in the kitchen that I knew you didn’t realize who I was. But every time I brought up the beach or the meta-crisis, you either didn’t want to talk about it, misunderstood me, or we got interrupted. One time you even fell asleep.”

“When was that?” she asked.

“On the trip back from Cardiff,” he said. “Had it all laid out, explained it much more eloquently than this time, I’ll have you know, and you fell asleep on me! You even responded to me at first. Makes me wonder if you’re really listening to me sometimes,” he said in mock-offense.

“Hang on,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “So every time you said you wanted to talk about the beach, that was some sort of code for ‘by the way, I’m not who you think I am?’”

She was glaring at him, and he cringed a little, knowing what was coming. “Maybe,” he said sheepishly.

She whacked his arm again. “For someone who talks so much, we really have to work on your communication skills.”

“Oi,” he protested. She wasn’t hitting hard, but he was starting to get sore. “When did you start hitting like your mother?”

“I always did,” she said, slapping his arm one last time. “You just haven’t deserved it so much. Well, maybe once or twice before,” she amended. She changed her mind and swatted him once more for good measure.

“Okay,” she said, nodding decisively. “I think I’m done now.”

“Good thing, too,” he responded. “My arm’s starting to hurt,” he said as he rubbed it.

“Oh, you’re such a baby sometimes,” she said. Suddenly something occurred to her. She gasped. “Speaking of Mum, how are we gonna tell her and Dad?”

“Weelll,” he said slowly, wondering if she was going to hit him again. “They kinda already know.”

“What!” she exclaimed, astonished. “You told them before you told me?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “I told Pete. He asked me straight out, and I told him, that night he took me to Torchwood that first time. But Jackie, well,” he paused and yanked on his left ear, nervous about what her reaction might be, “she sorta… figured it out all by herself.”

“My _mother_ figured out who you are before I did?” Rose was horrified. And more than a bit embarrassed.

“Yeah, and she kept threatening to tell you if I didn’t,” he told her. “Scared ten years off my life, that did, and I don’t have them to lose anymore.”

She laughed.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. She had to say it, and she truly meant it, but it seemed so inadequate. “I should have known. I should have realized. I kept on telling myself you weren’t him.”

“Well, I’m not,” he said. 

She stared at him. “Okay, now I’m totally confused. You just told me you were.”

“I told you I’m the Doctor. I told you we both were,” he agreed. “We were the same person. But we aren’t anymore. The instant we started making different choices, different decisions, we began to be separate people. Right now we are similar to the same person in different timelines. Soon we will be like parallel versions of ourselves. And eventually we will be more like brothers than the same person.

“You know, I once said that a man is the sum of his memories, and a Time Lord even more so. And that’s true, so far as it goes.” he continued. “I was so young then,” he said, shaking his head. How wise he had thought himself, how naïve he’d been before the War. “It’s true that what we remember, what we’ve experienced, shapes us and forms our personalities. But it’s our decisions that truly define us, make us who we are.”

“Different decisions? You mean like on the Crucible, when you destroyed the Daleks?” she asked. “He was furious at you over that.”

“Actually, no,” he answered. “He would have eventually done the same thing. We’ve destroyed Daleks countless times over the years, even before the War. He would have eventually done it again. He was just fooling himself to think that he wouldn’t.”

“No,” he continued, looking into her eyes. “I’m talking about on the beach. We made different choices. He chose to leave.”

“And you chose to stay?” she asked. 

He shook his head. “No, that’s not the decision that changed me." He took her face in his hands, looking deeply into her eyes and willing her to understand what he was about to say. “No, the defining decision I made, the one that truly put us on different paths, is that…” He swallowed nervously and then took a deep breath. “I _chose_ to tell you I love you.”

She stared at him in astonishment, at this amazing man saying the most wonderful words she had ever heard. It was only the second time he had said them to her, and the first time since she really understood who he was. And she reacted exactly as she had that first time he had said them, but this time she acted not out of impulse, but deliberately.

 

“You know, only _you_ could somehow manage to stay _and_ to leave at the same time,” she said later.

“Well, I _am_ impressive,” he said with a smirk.

“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” she said with a laugh. She nodded. “Now that was impressive.”

They had moved to sit on the sofa in the living room and he had his arm around her shoulders. Both their trainer-clad feet were resting on the low table in front of them. 

“So now, what’s it like?” she asked. “You started out as the same person, but you aren’t anymore. Or are you? I mean, how much are you still the same person? Do you share thoughts or anything?”

“Look at you, asking all the right questions,” he said. He grinned at her and hoped she didn’t recognize the fact he was deflecting some of them.

“Finally, you mean. This is what I should have been asking a week ago.” He may have forgiven her for doubting him, but she was having a hard time forgiving herself. 

“Hey, none of that,” he said to her. “It’s not like a meta-crisis is a common occurrence. I’m a unique event in time and space. Bound to be some misunderstandings.”

“But everyone around us accepted you at face value. Donna, Jack, Sarah Jane, even my own mum figured it out before me. It was only me who doubted you.”

“Only you had a vested interest in this. It didn’t really matter to anyone else whether or not I was who I said I was. It only mattered to you.”

“You mean because I love you,” she said.

For a moment the Doctor stopped breathing and if he had been asked, he would have sworn his heart stopped as well. He stared at Rose. He hadn’t known for sure she still felt that way. Of course he had hoped, but she hadn’t actually said it since shortly after Canary Wharf, when they were universes apart and he had burned up a supernova just to see her one last time. Yet she said it so matter of factly, like she was discussing a law of nature or a mathematical constant, something never changing to the point of mundane. As if something so earth shattering could ever be mundane.

“But do you?” he whispered.

She searched his face. There was such a combination of emotions on it, hope, longing, doubt…

“You know I do. You must know,” she insisted. “I told you I did. And you were such an arse and said ‘Quite right, too.’”

He laughed a bit nervously. “Yeah, but that was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before the meta-crisis.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Before I changed again. Before the human DNA. I’m the same person, but he’s still more what I was back then than I am now. Or ever will be again. I understand if you don’t, can’t, feel the same way anymore.”

Her jaw dropped as she stared at him in astonishment. There was something in his voice, nervousness, hopefulness, and a tiny bit of something else that was in his voice when they had discussed Owen at Torchwood…

“Seriously?” she demanded. “You can’t mean to tell me that now that I am FINALLY convinced that you are you, that you are jealous of _yourself_. Where is this coming from? You weren’t jealous of how I felt about you when you regenerated that first time.” She paused and stared at him, her mind returning to the long ago memories of that first regeneration, the one she had witnessed after the Game Station.

“Hang on,” she said quietly, more to herself than him. She remembered the look of disappointment on his face when she had asked if he could change back, and the tentative, almost shy, way he had asked her if she still wanted to travel with him after he had changed. Her eyes widened in realization. “Oh my God, you WERE jealous, weren’t you? Admit it!”

His silence spoke volumes.

Rose sighed. She dropped her head to lean it against his arm and stared at the ceiling. After a moment she started laughing.

Out of the corner of her eye Rose saw the Doctor’s eyebrows shoot up. “What is so funny?” he demanded, failing to see the humor of the situation.

“Oh. My. God!” she said, barely able to talk because she was laughing so hard. “You are completely barmy. And completely adorable.”

And now he looked completely nonplussed. She had always loved seeing him that way, it was so rare. She tried to stop laughing. He looked like he was about to say something, but she cut him off. Putting her feet on the floor, she turned to face him head on. After she had composed herself, she cupped his face in her hands. 

“Doctor, I need you to listen to me,” she said, staring into his eyes. “Now pay attention. I love you. I. Love. You. I loved you when I first met you, when you had big ears and blue eyes and you wore jumpers and that sexy leather coat. And when you regenerated, I fell in love with you all over again, pinstripes and trainers, dark brown eyes and sexy glasses and great hair, all your rude and not gingerness. And I still love you, even with one heart and a bit of Donna’s DNA thrown in the mix. 

“I love you. God help me I probably would have fallen for you even when you wore that goofy scarf or that horrible multicolor coat I saw in the TARDIS. And I’d still love you even if you regenerated into someone who wore, I dunno, bowties and goofy hats.”

“Rose,” the Doctor began, but she interrupted him.

“I’m not finished,” Rose said. “I don’t like playing the ‘what if’ game. It’s enough that you know and I know that the walls to this universe are sealed and he can’t come back, not even if he wanted to. But the Doctor I would _choose_ to be with is the one who told me he loved me and offered me his forever and then held me while I cried for the other. The one who let me yell at him and still stayed with me when I wasn’t sure I could offer more than friendship. The one who doesn’t do domestics but hasn’t once complained about living with my mother. The one who still risks his life, even though he can’t regenerate anymore. The one that made me fall in love with him all over again.” She paused to allow what she had said to sink in, and then she continued. “I fell in love with _you_. This you. Even though I didn’t realize who you were.”

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor began, and then found himself speechless. Totally gobsmacked. It occurred to him that this was probably a first for him in this body and a rarity in any regeneration. He realized his eyes were misty and he was completely unable to come up with a single coherent thought. So he did the only logical thing his brain could come up with. He kissed her.

It might have turned into quite an impressive snog had Jackie, Pete and Tony not arrived.

“Oi,” said Jackie. “Enough of that. Not in front of the C-H-I-L-D.”

“Rose, I know you said something about me not complaining about living with your mother…” he whispered in her ear, and she burst out laughing.

“Eww, you were kissing Rose,” Tony said, climbing into the Doctor’s lap.

“Yes, I was,” he told him. “And one day you’ll understand why.” He tapped the little boy on the tip of his nose.

“But not too soon,” Jackie said emphatically, sinking down into a chair near them. Pete sat down on the opposite chair.

“I assume that this means you’ve finally told her,” Jackie said, gesturing at them. “Well, it’s about time. I told him he needed to tell you. I said, you tell her or I will. And I would ‘ave. You know I would ‘ave.”

“Yes, we know, Jacks,” said her long-suffering husband.

Sliding from the Doctor’s lap, Tony grabbed Rose’s hand and pulled her to the floor.

“Play with me,” he demanded. “You haven’t played with me in forever.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right, Tony,” she responded, and they moved to an open area of the room. Tony pulled out his basket of toys and they grabbed two toy cars and drove them all over the floor, Rose making some impressive sound effects to go with hers. 

“C’mon, Tony,” she said, “let’s race.”

The Doctor sat back and watched as Jackie and Pete Tyler watched Rose play with Tony on the floor. It was such an intimate moment, such a domestic scene, that for a second he felt a wave of panic. He didn’t do domestic. He hadn’t done domestic for a very, very long time. He was completely rubbish at domestics. Could he do this?

At that very moment, almost as if she was sensing his thoughts, Rose turned and looked at him. And smiled. And as he grinned back he realized that, yes, with her by his side he could do this. With her by his side, he could even do domestic. With her by his side, he could do anything.


	36. Epilogue

Later, Pete told Rose he needed to talk to her.

“And alone this time, Rose,” he insisted.

When Rose looked like she was going to argue, the Doctor took himself out of the equation.

“Tony, do you have a football?” he asked. When the boy nodded, he said, “You know, Tony, I have never played football before. How about we go outside and you show me how to play?”

Shortly before dinner, Rose went outside and found the Doctor and Tony playing on the lawn. The Doctor was just in his shirt, trousers and trainers. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his jacket lay on the ground as if it had been tossed to the side, out of the way. She could see his tie hanging out of his jacket pocket.

“Not like that,” Tony was yelling. “Like this.” He kicked the ball to the Doctor, who expertly kicked it back.

“How was that?” he asked. “Better?”

“ ‘S okay, I guess,” Tony answered. “But when you’re really playing you have to do it while you’re running at the same time. Are you a good runner?”

“Am I a good runner?” the Doctor asked. He spotted Rose standing to the side, watching them in amusement. “Let’s ask Rose. Rose,” he called. “Am I a good runner?”

“The best,” she said. “I’ve never seen a better runner. You know, Tony, the first thing I ever did with the Doctor is run. The Doctor is an expert at running. Some days, that’s all he does.”

The Doctor looked at her in amusement, not certain if he should be insulted or not.

“Tony,” she said, crossing over to them. “Mum wants you to go wash up for dinner.” When he began to protest, she continued with a jerk of her head toward the house. “Now, young man.”

The Doctor and Rose both watched as the boy crossed the lawn and entered the house. Retrieving his brown pinstriped jacket from where he had left it in the grass, the Doctor reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He mopped his face with it. 

“Human sweat glands,” he said with look of disgust on his face. “Absolutely rubbish.”

“Welcome to the world of humanity,” she said, grinning at him cheekily.

He shot her a look. When she laughed at him, he found he couldn’t help but laugh with her. 

“Fancy a walk, Doctor?” she asked.

He looked at her curiously, rolling down his sleeves and slipping his suit jacket back on. He shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, not bothering to put on his tie. “With you? Always,” he responded.

She took his hand and led the way across the lawn to the path that led to the pond.

“So what did Pete want?” he asked.

“They found Lisa Hallett,” she said. “She was wandering around in a daze by the London Eye.”

“How did she get out there?” he asked. Lisa hadn’t had access to a vehicle when she managed to escape the Torchwood compound.

“We don’t know,” she said. “And there’s more. She’s having memory problems. Could that be an effect of being linked with one of the Kern?”

“Could be. Maybe,” he answered, uncertainty in his voice. “The human brain is very delicate. How much memory has she lost?”

“Let’s put it this way,” she said to him. “She thinks she’s still engaged to Ianto.”

He grimaced. “Over five years…”

“Yeah,” she said. “In fact, when she was first found and Torchwood was contacted, it looked like she had been Ret-Conned. That’s why we wanted to know if the Kern had done this to her. Because if this isn’t an effect of the Kern…”

“Then someone did this to her,” he finished grimly. 

“I really hate to think that,” Rose said. “Doctor, did we get them all? The Kern, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I certainly hope so.” He paused. “What’s Ianto gonna do?”

“About Lisa? Well, from what I understand, he’s staying here for a little while. She doesn’t really have anyone else. Since she lost five years, she didn’t even remember her stepmother had died.”

“Has she been tested for Ret-Con?” the Doctor asked.

“Yeah, and according to Frank Collins they didn’t find any trace in her system,” she said.

“Well, there’s your answer, then,” the Doctor said. He had a hard time having any sympathy for Lisa Hallett after what she had done to Rose.

They had reached the pond and automatically went to sit down on the rock they had sat on before. Rose found she was already thinking of it as “their” rock. The ducks were there again, and she thought that next time they came they should really bring some bread or something for them.

“You know, you never told me where you went when you took off this morning,” the Doctor said. “I looked all over for you but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“Here,” she said. “I came right here. I needed to think and this was the only place I could think of to come.”

“So what did you think about?” he asked.

“A couple of things,” she said. “Although mostly about what an idiot I am.” 

“But you’re not,” he protested. “You’re brilliant.”

“That’s very nice to say, but honestly, sometimes I’m an idiot,” she said. “I sat here, thinking about how I had fallen in love with you without remembering one of the most important things about you.”

“What’s that?” he asked curiously.

“That you’re an alien. A real, honest to goodness alien from outer space. You’re not just from the Balkans or Bangladesh or Barcelona or something. You’re a space alien. It’s like one of those awful tabloids you see at the market. ‘I fell in love with an alien.’ And I did. I mean I knew it, your regeneration after the Game Station was a dead giveaway, but sometimes I forget how _alien_ alien can be.”

“Is that okay with you? That I’m an alien, I mean,” he asked seriously. “Although I’m not as much as I used to be.”

“Yeah, of course it’s okay, cos it’s you,” she said with a smile, bumping into him with her shoulder. “You know, you asked me that when I first saw the TARDIS. If it was okay that you were an alien. It was okay then, and it’s still okay now. Besides, I’m the alien to you, yeah? Is it okay with you?”

“It’s more than okay,” he said, smiling at her. After giving her a quick kiss, he continued. “You said you thought about a couple of things when you were down here. What else?”

She paused for a moment. “You know, I kept on telling myself you couldn’t be, well, you, partially because it was impossible for there to be two of you without one of you being a parallel or something. I’ve been on this planet so long, and then traveled to so many different parallel worlds that parallel people is something I understand. But parallel people are similar; they aren’t the same. I love Pete and he’s my dad in so many ways, but _my_ dad, my _real_ dad, died in 1987 saving your life, saving my life, and saving my whole planet from reapers because of something I did. This Pete didn’t do that.” She grew quiet for a moment as she did whenever she thought of her real dad. She was always sad that she hadn’t known him better, but was so incredibly proud of him for what he had done to fix her mistake.

“Anyway,” she continued quietly, “the other reason I couldn’t believe you were really you is because you are so different than you were. You’ve been so much more open. And… you told me I was beautiful. That time in my office. You said then that you were the same man, but part of the reason I didn’t believe you was because you were so _different_.” She paused again, almost afraid to ask the next question, but she knew she had to. “That’s not from the meta-crisis is it? Or is it?”

The unspoken question, _are you different because of the human DNA, because of Donna_ , hung in the air between them. The Doctor was shocked. As soon as he heard Rose’s question, he had to admit it was a fair one, but how could she not know?

“Rose,” he said. He cupped her face in his hand. “That wasn’t the meta-crisis. That was Canary Wharf. Losing you was…” He paused, closed his eyes and swallowed thickly. When he opened them again, he continued. “It was… hard. And then when I ran out of time, that first time on Bad Wolf Bay…” He rolled his eyes. “A Time Lord who ran out of time,” he said derisively, shaking his head. “Anyway, losing you, it… changed me. And then when you found me again, despite the _complete_ impossibility of you doing it, I told myself things were going to be different. I told myself I wasn’t wasting any more time. I’m tired of wasting time.”

She stared at him, this gorgeous man whom she had both loved for years and had just recently fallen in love with. And he stared back, his timeless eyes full of love. Neither was certain who moved first, but suddenly she found she was in his arms. He lowered his head to hers. And his kiss, soft and loving rather than hard and passionate, was nevertheless devastating in its intensity and shook her to the core.

Eventually they broke apart, both a bit breathless, and he laughed. 

“Rose,” he said, “I _really_ think we need to find our own place. We can’t come here every time I want to kiss you uninterrupted. As lovely a spot as this is…”

“Why Doctor,” Rose said flirtatiously, grinning with her tongue just peeking between her teeth. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“I think I already did that,” he said, grinning back. “Remember? Asked you to run away with me. And when you said no, I came back and said ‘Did I mention it also travels in time?’ Gave you my key and everything.”

She laughed for a moment and then became serious. “About finding our own place…” Her voice trailed off.

“What? Don’t tell me you want to stay here at the mansion?” He sounded so worried that she had to laugh.

“No,” she quickly assured him. “It’s just something else Dad and I talked about. We… talked about Cardiff. By the way, he told me who it was who reported Owen.”

“Really?” he asked. “Who was it?”

“Tosh,” she said. At his surprise, she continued. “Evidently she’s been worried about how self-destructive he seems to be, and she thought that by reporting him maybe it would shake him up enough to make some changes. But Dad led Owen to believe that he was caught on CCTV so he wouldn’t know Tosh turned him in.”

“Anyway,” she continued slowly. She was nervous about telling him the rest of the conversation. “Dad, he, uh, wants me to take over Torchwood Three.” She cringed, not knowing what his reaction would be. “He said I was the only qualified candidate who could control Owen. But that would mean moving to Cardiff. And you couldn’t work at Torchwood anymore. Not officially anyway. That’s assuming you want to come with, of course,” she said in a rush. 

“Why wouldn’t I want to come with?” he asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“I dunno. Didn’t want to assume.” She shrugged, uncharacteristically shy. “And we don’t have to go at all. I know you don’t really like Cardiff.”

“No, this is an excellent opportunity for you. You should go. And of course I want to come with,” he told her. “And Cardiff is perfect.”

“What? Why?” 

“Well, for one thing, it’s close enough to visit your mother, but not close enough for her to just drop in unannounced all the time,” he said pointedly, and she grinned. “And I should be able to get a job doing something or other in Cardiff as well as here. Plus, if we get a place that is close to the rift, close but not on, it’ll provide just enough energy for the TARDIS coral to grow without overwhelming it. And when I need a break from working on the TARDIS, I can finish analyzing the changes to my DNA. And maybe even figure out what happened to those stars.” _And figure out what’s going on with your DNA as well_ , he added silently to himself.

“Plus, Rose Tyler,” he said softly, lifting his hand to caress her cheek. “Cardiff is where I… well, it’s where I first realized I was falling in love with you.”

Her heart skipped a beat. He had told her he loved her before, but she still wasn’t used to hearing it. Something told her she’d never be used to hearing it. But then the rest of what he had said registered in her mind. 

“Hang on,” she said, her brow furrowed. What he had said just did not add up. “You told me on the beach that you loved me, and that was before we went to Cardiff.”

“Not that time, Rose,” he said. “Not that trip to Cardiff. Before. When we were traveling.”

She thought back to the two times they had been in Cardiff while they had been traveling in the TARDIS. She stared at him as her mind reeled. They hadn’t traveled to Cardiff since he had regenerated after the Game Station. He had been in love with her that long?

“Was it when Blon Fel Fotch grabbed me in the TARDIS? Is that when you realized it?” she asked finally. The Slitheen had threatened to kill her before the Doctor had convinced Blon to look into the heart of the TARDIS, regressing her back into an egg and, in turn, saving Rose. She was floored that he may have loved her that long.

The Doctor just shook his head.

“But then…” she said, bewildered.

“There we were,” he said, “locked in a dungeon in Cardiff, about to die, and you told me it wasn’t my fault. You said we’d go down fighting. Together. And you grabbed my hand. And I said…”

“‘I’m so glad I met you,’” Rose finished. She stared at him in amazement.

“And you said, ‘Me too.’ There we were, about to die, and you were still saying you were glad you met me. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. Truth be told, it probably started before then, maybe even when you rescued me from the Nestene Consciousness, but it was in Cardiff that I began to realize how I felt about you. And then by the time we were in Downing Street it was all over.”

“‘I could save the world and lose you,’” she breathed, wide eyed, quoting him. She would never forget him saying that.

He nodded.

It took her a few moments for her brain to process what he had revealed to her. It put a completely new spin on her memories.

“It took me longer, you know,” she eventually admitted quietly. “My mum knew, and Mickey knew, before I would admit it to myself. You were just so, I dunno, important and,” she sighed, “ _impressive_ and I just worked in a shop. It never occurred to me back then that you could care for me. But you know, Doctor, really… you had me at _run_.”

 

An hour later they were still there. They sat on the rock holding hands, her head resting against his shoulder, watching the sun go down. The sunset was gorgeous, orange and red and yellow and casting a glow on everything it touched. 

They sat in companionable silence, enjoying each other’s company without feeling the need to fill the air with unnecessary talk. Not everything had been said between them, they still needed to talk about a lot of things, but for now, for the moment, things were right. Comfortable. Peaceful. Perfect.

She glanced at him and squeezed his hand. Warmer than it used to be, yet still much cooler than a human’s. That same hand, which had first taken hold of hers in Henrik’s. Which had been cut off on a spacecraft above the Earth in a different universe. Which now belonged to her third Doctor. _Her_ Doctor. Her new, new, new Doctor.

As she held his hand, it struck her, as it always did, how their hands fit perfectly together. Despite his regenerations, despite his hand being slightly different than it had been in Henrik’s, their hands always fit perfectly. She should have known, she told herself in a moment of whimsy, she should have realized it was really him if only because their hands fit, like they always had, and like no one else’s ever would.

She looked out at the pond. The ducks had long since gone, back to their nest or to wherever ducks go when they leave a place, but the pond itself looked alive. The reflection of the setting sun made the water appear on fire, and the glow was almost too bright to look at. Above the pond, above the tree line, several zeppelins flew, black against the orange sky and scarlet clouds.

She glanced back at him, at the handsome face she had loved for so long, and the man that wore it that she had loved even while he had worn a different face. He saw her looking at him and looked back at her, his face reflecting such love and devotion that she was almost embarrassed, feeling unworthy of the feelings she now knew he had for her, and had had for her for so long. Who was she, that such a man should love her?

Instead of revealing that, she quoted his own words back to him, words spoken on a different planet, in a different universe, a lifetime, for him, away.

“How long are you gonna stay with me?”

He looked at her seriously, his dark eyes piercing into her soul, and spoke one word.

“Forever.”

And then he smiled.


End file.
